Nora
by SwamAmongTheNorthernLights
Summary: We all have our parts to play. Some of us know exactly what those roles are, and others...not so much. When Nora is dropped into a world she didn't even know existed, she'll have to make a life-changing decision, and she'll definitely have big shoes to fill if she does. OC story. Rated T for language, but may possibly go up for potential mature content.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Impossible

**Hello, this is my very first FanFic, so go easy on me, I'm used to writing original stories, so oddly enough writing a story with characters that are already written about was actually kind of a challenge, apart from Nora, who is my OC, and others that will appear in later chapters.**

**This story starts right at the beginning of season five, first episode, "Sympathy for the Devil", and will continue on from there. **

**Hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories. **

Upstate New York

"Congratulations, Nora. The test came back positive. You're pregnant."

So, finally, the thought in the back of her mind, a mind driven mad by the constant anxiety-filled consideration that her situation could always be worse, came true. She wasn't an idiot. She didn't fail biology. However, her situation happened to be quite impossible.

"I'm…I'm what?"

"You're with child."

She shook her head back and forth thinking maybe the words that came out of the doctor's mouth would become unscrambled in her mind and make a more coherent sentence.

"I can't be. It's only been a couple of days since I had sex."

Puzzled, the doctor tried to make sense of her concerns.

"Are you sure? Perhaps you miscalculated?"

"No, you don't understand, I was a virgin two days ago, I mean until that night. There's no way."

Suddenly, she was snapped back into reality, reminded of why she was at the hospital in the first place, and shot out her question immediately.

"And by the way, why did you test me to see if I was pregnant? I came here thinking I had a…stomach flu, or something."

The doctor hung his head low, seemingly ashamed he kept this a secret from her, all of the twenty minutes he was gone. He rolled over in his chair testing the boundary between the two of them when he reached out to cover her hands with his. She didn't back away, too shocked and confused.

"I'm sorry, Nora. You described to me very common symptoms of an early pregnancy. I just wanted to be sure. I am, however, concerned that since you said it was only a couple of days ago, that maybe you have had intercourse before and don't remember, or…"

No, she was absolutely sure two days ago was her first time. She definitely wasn't ever drunk enough to do something stupid like that and not remember. She didn't even drink! And then it was as if suddenly the last suggestion her doctor brought to light a few seconds ago reverberate d in her ears.

"No, I was never raped or drugged, I swear. I don't even drink. Are you sure the test is accurate? I mean, I've heard they can be faulty sometimes."

He grinned, the smile not reaching his eyes.

"I don't think that's the case, Nora."

"Well, I can't be that far along can I?"

The doctor wheeled back over to his computer and clicked open a tab with her results. He scanned them, squinting his eyes as if somehow something new would appear on the screen that he missed before.

"It says, you're about…seven weeks along now."

"Seven weeks!?"

At this point, she wondered if the doctor would lump her into the category of odd medical happenings. He seemed so calm though. Of course he did. He wasn't the one who had to carry around a baby that somehow got inside of her. Not to mention, a baby that apparently grows at an unnatural pace. Tears threatened to spill, and she tried to contain the trembling in her muscles, feeling as if showing she were weak would somehow make the doctor judge her negatively. She couldn't make it worse. He probably already came up with the notion that she was probably just some twenty-something drunk who couldn't remember having sex.

"I…I have to go!"

She hurried out the door hearing the doctor call after her, but she blocked herself from hearing what exactly he had to say. She ignored the concerned, lingering, stares from the nurses and patients outside the office and scurried her way to the exit.

It was pouring down rain outside so she picked up the pace and ran to her beat up, lame, excuse for a car and practically threw herself inside, shutting the door roughly behind her. She looked out in front of her, watching the rain paint trails on her window and clutched her purse tightly to herself. Shaking violently finally relaxed her muscles enough that her body gave up and she released herself and her purse leaning her arms onto her steering wheel, head resting on them. She sobbed all the while racking her brain trying to put her thoughts into one cohesive unit.

Scared didn't even begin to describe what she was feeling. Somehow, ironically, words sometimes just weren't enough to cover it. Even more ironic, the fact that she expressed her feelings with words for a living, and now they fell short. All she knew was that she was in no way prepared to have a child. Moreover, how the hell did it get inside of her?! As her mind had done before, she started to think that maybe the doctor was on to something after all back in the office.

_I was drunk when…maybe I did the same thing weeks before and don't remember…what if I __**was **__date raped?_

She lifted her head and took several deep breaths before she hurriedly wiped away the tears from her face and put the key into the ignition.

_I'll just drive home and I will figure out what I should do when I get there._

**Meanwhile…**

Sam was pacing the dingy hotel room reading fiercely for answers about Lucifer, or anything at this point that would help, in John's journal, while Dean was sitting on his bed watching the news and their take on the looming apocalypse they had no idea was upon them. The reporter, stern, asked the man she was interviewing the stimulating question on everyone's, well, everyone that was something supernatural or hunted them, minds.

"How would you then explain an earthquake, a hurricane, and multiple tornadoes, all at the same time, all around the globe?"

The man, confident as ever, looked straight into the camera and said, "Two words. Carbon emissions."

Dean scoffed and sat up on the bed, placing his feet on the floor next to him.

"Yeah, right."

Suddenly, both men look up at the sound of a knock on the door. Of course, Dean's first instinct is to pull his gun out, locked and loaded and ready to kill anything that threatens them, but Sam, hesitantly opens the door and standing on the other side of the door is a short, and annoyingly excitable girl whose composure collapses when she looks up, craning her neck to look up at Sam. She's breathing heavily, and Sam looks at her confused.

"You okay, lady," he asks her.

"Sam, is it really you," she asked in awe.

Sam glances back at Dean, their expressions identical. Then, Becky with no hesitation put her hand on Sam's chest to which he tenses up, clearly uncomfortable.

"And you're so firm," she sighs.

"Uh, do I know you," Sam asks puzzled.

The girl's hand still pressed onto his chest suddenly becomes slightly less manic and says, "No, but I know you. You're Sam Winchester, and you are," Her expression turns to disappointment when she looks around Sam's bulking figure to glance at Dean, "not what I pictured."

For a second, Dean looks offended, but he shakes his head and listens to whatever it is this insane little girl had to say, or why she was there at their hotel room in the first place.

As if she suddenly remembered her manners, she introduces herself, "I'm Becky."

She invites herself in and stands before the two of them ready to explain herself. "Mr. Edlund actually sent me here."

"Chuck," the brothers said in unison.

"He's got a message, but he's being watched. Angels. Nice change-up to the mythology, by the way. The demon stuff was getting kind of old."

Sam rolled his eyes closing the door behind him. The very thought that those books still existed was constantly a nagging thought in the back of both the brother's minds.

"Right …what's the message?"

"He wanted me to tell you," Becky started looking up in the air speaking as if she was trying to remember lines for a school presentation, "he had a vision. "The Michael sword is on Earth. The angels lost it."

"The Michael sword," Dean repeats.

Sam looks fully invested in Becky.

"Does he know where it is?"

"Yeah, here's the weird part. It's in a castle, on a hill made of forty-two dogs."

Dean looks at her unbelievably and repeats her again.

"Forty-two dogs?"

Becky looked at Dean frustrated and said, "Wow, that's even more annoying in real life."

Sam rolled his eyes again and brought Becky's attention back to him.

"Are…you sure you got that right?"

"It doesn't make sense, but that's what he said. Oh…and it is there that you will find honor as well."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean," Dean asks bewildered.

"I'm just the messenger guys," Becky shrugs.

"Well…thanks for telling us, Becky," Sam says.

Becky smiles and moves closer to him touching his chest again. She looks up into his eyes and says, "Of course. I memorized all of it…for you…"

She then closes her eyes and takes in the feeling of Sam's chest under her hand.

"Uh, Becky…can you quit touching me," he says uncomfortably.

"No," she states.

**Nora: In her apartment. **

"Okay, so…I'm pregnant."

The more Nora tried to say it aloud the weirder it sounded and the harder she would continue to cry. More so than ever she felt isolated. She had spent her entire life feeling that way, what with being raised by her grandmother while her father was "away for work", and her deceased mother, and no siblings or close enough cousins, but the feeling of being alone came crashing down on her. She didn't have many friends, mostly due to her job, more like acquaintances, and while she thought about calling them, she stopped herself.

_What would I even say, _she thought.

Oh, hey so-and-so, I'm just calling you to let you know I'm pregnant. Oh how many weeks? Oh, seven, but I just had sex for the first two days ago! Ha ha, strange right?!

She wished she had a mother to call. She wasn't ever close with her mom, but she would know what to do at least, like all mothers do.

It was then that Nora started looking around the space of her apartment. She had books lying around quite messily, leftover food sitting on the end table with half empty cans of soda and a mug of old coffee. She started to wonder how she could take care of a kid when she can't even take care of herself. She had a small one-bedroom apartment. The kitchen, the living room, all in the same room. Down a narrow hallway, it led to a bathroom and one bedroom.

_I don't have anywhere for the baby to sleep._

She knew she would have to buy all the baby essentials, but with what money? She had just moved to New York from Chicago. She was a journalist for the Chicago Tribune, the opinion section. Ironically, it was her opinion on the paranormal happenings in the world, and her very own world that got her fired. That was a long story for another time. She had been to a cafe with the guy she slept with asking for a job he apparently had an opening for where he too worked, but so much for that. He got what he wanted from her and never called about the job. He gave her a job all right. One with no pay and about double the amount of responsibility. She thought about going back to the café, where he also worked part time, to tell him, but again, he wouldn't believe her if she did. She couldn't tell anyone. He told her he worked for the local newspaper, which wasn't her ideal job, but a job's a job, and she definitely couldn't afford to be picky.

She had felt somewhat more relaxed since arriving home. Hospitals tended to freak her out because as a child she spent most of her time there…when her mother died, her father, and even she ended up there several times. Now, however, the realization of her condition had her tightening her fists and her body starting to shiver. She had to sit herself on the couch to relieve some of the stress and when she did, she turned sideways laying on her side her arm resting on the arm of the chair, supporting her head. She let a few silent tears stroll down her red stained face, and that when the picture on her table next to her caught her eye. Sitting just beside the lamp was a picture of her parents around her age. She stared at them jadedly. First at her mother, so much like herself with long, wavy, brown hair and brown eyes, the shape the only different feature. Regrettably, she had the shape of her dad's eyes. She didn't want anything from him. When he died, he told her to leave everything of his in a storage unit, not to be touched by her or anyone else. Wasn't deemed worthy enough to own anything of his, seemingly. Hell, she wasn't even allowed to go inside of it.

_Screw it,_ she thought, _I know for a fact there's got to be my old baby clothes and crib there._

Therefore, it was then that she decided she would drive to Buffalo, just a 30-minute drive, and take what she needed.

**A/N: I know it's not much to start with, but I promise, I did my research, looong long hours of it, and everything will fall into place. BTW, that's not actually the permanent title. I'm just terrible at coming up with one, so eventually I'll think of one and let you know when I change it. Please review, you know the drill. I'm very open to constructive criticism. Next chapter Nora will meet the brothers! Thanks you!**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

**Hello again! Thanks for the reviews, follows, favorites, the whole lot! I really do appreciate it! By the way, I don't know if this helps at all, but I'm currently living in Switzerland, so for anyone reading in the U.S., I'm a lot of hours ahead of you guys which means when I update it might be weird hours for you. I just wanted to be clear on that, don't know if you guys care, but just f.y.i. Also, I'm taking a French class while I'm here, and it's kicking my ass, so I'll try and update as fast as I can, but that's my excuse if you don't get the chapters immediately. **

**So here's chapter 2! Hope you enjoy. As always review and let me know what you're thinking. **

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories. **

Nora walked through the parking lot and down several rows of storage units until she found her father's. She hesitated opening the door, feeling like she was suddenly intruding in on someone's private life. All those years he spent warning her to never go inside and now here she was, and she was admittedly terrified to know what was inside.

She kneeled down to grab the latch on the bottom of the door and started to lift the door when she heard a loud bang coming from the next row of rooms over. Her immediate reaction was to stay crouched down, but then she heard two men talking about…curse boxes? A rabbit foot? Tear gas?

Suddenly another voice sounded, and further confused her when he said, "I see you told the demons where the sword is."

"Oh, thank god. The angels are here," came another, deep, and seemingly annoyed voice.

_Angels? Demons?_ Nora couldn't tell if these people were role-playing, or just plain nuts, and against her better judgment, she was too intrigued to just sit quietly, so she tiptoed her way down the row and peeked around the corner trying to stay hidden. Just a couple of rooms down, she saw the three men and two others standing behind one wearing a suit and a smug smile. It was when she looked at what was on the floor, when she realized that being nosey was a big mistake. In front of the other two, one much taller than the other laid two bodies facedown, dead. She gasped and slammed her hand over her mouth, shaming herself for being loud.

She tried to turn and hide herself, but the man in the suit caught her before she could get away.

"Aw, Nora, how nice of you to join us," he said.

She was just about to ask him how he knew her name, when the other two men that had been standing behind this man were suddenly in front of her taking both of her arms and practically dragging her over to the others.

"Let go of me," Nora struggled.

"We'll get to you in a minute," he said to her as the men dragged her behind him and held her in place. He looked back over to the shorter of the two men standing in front of them, and continued, "And to think, Dean, they could've grabbed it any time they wanted." The suited man waved his hand in the air, and like magic, the door in front of them and behind the other men closed. "It was right in front of them."

"What do you mean," the taller man said.

"We may have planted that particular piece of prophecy inside Chuck's skull, but it happened to be true. We did lose the Michael sword. We truly couldn't find it. Until now. You've just hand-delivered it to us. And it looks like someone's plans worked out bringing Nora here as well. Chuck did say you two morons would find honor here," he said winking at Nora and then looking at Dean, and the other man next to him.

"Yeah what does that mean," the tall man said.

"Sam, just a click of the mouse, and you could've found that out. Chuck had to be vague, but honestly, Nora literally translates to "honor"."

Dean looked over at Nora, a little panicked look in his eyes, and back at the other man.

"We don't have anything," he said sternly.

The man in the suit smiled brightly and almost laughing said, "It's you chucklehead. You're the Michael sword. I mean, you think _you_ of all people could kill Lucifer? You're just a human, Dean, a self-loathing, sorry excuse for one."

"What do you mean, I'm the sword," Dean asked.

"You're Michael's weapon. Or rather his…receptacle."

Nora stood back, her eyes wide shifting back and forth between the three men, all the while being held back against her will. She opened her mouth to speak, but one of the men holding her held his hand against her mouth, silencing her.

The men continued to talk about, well, it was all really confusing to her, but something about being chosen as a vessel for Michael, and Dean refused until suddenly the suited man gestured toward Sam and made a finger gun pretend making it shoot him, and Sam actually fell down as if he really was shot.

"You son of a bitch," Dean shouted.

Fed up, the man snapped back at Dean in a very serious tone, "Keep mouthing off, I'll break both of his legs. Now, you listen to me, the war has begun, we don't have our general, and that's bad. Michael will have his vessel, you _will _say yes. You understand me?"

"And how many people die, huh? A million? Five? Ten," Dean snarled.

"This is _Lucifer _we're talking about boys. If he goes unchecked, you know how many die? All of them. He'll roast the planet alive."

Nora whimpered as the men tightened their grip around her arms, the more she struggled to get free and the suited man turned around to her smiling in awe.

"Oh yes, and speaking of Lucifer, you're probably dying of curiosity over there, aren't you Nora?"

She stared at him, nervously, and again tried to struggle to get free. Sam looked over at her curiously and grabbed the man's attention away from her.

"What does she have to do with any of this?"

He stared back at Nora, looking at her like he knew something she obviously didn't. She could practically see him working out the kinks in his brain, figuring out what to say to her and the other men.

"Unfortunately, it's not my place to say. Honestly. All I know, is that the little bun in your oven…it's all a test," he smiled.

Nora felt her heart drop. There was no way this man would know about her baby, having only found out about her pregnancy just recently, unless he was stalking her, and somehow heard everything the doctor told her. She wanted to speak but the man holding her still had his hand covering her mouth.

As if reading her mind, the man in front of her motioned to him saying, "Please, let her speak."

The two men released their grip on her and shoved her a little ways forward. She caught her balance and steadied herself.

"What are you talking about," she asked. "A test…a test for what?"

"Like I said, it's not my place. Not really my business either. Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough, what with this war coming and all."

Dean interrupted, almost as if he had missed this whole conversation going on before him, and a light bulb must have switched on in his head.

"You need my consent? He can't ride my skin, unless I say yes."

Sighing the man said, "Yes, unfortunately. There must be a battle. It is written."

Dean suddenly stood taller, confident. "Yeah, but on the other hand, eat me. The answer's no."

Whomever this man was, Nora could tell just by looking at him, that he had a power immeasurable, and she was pretty sure she was witnessing him harvesting that power when he threatened to hurt a friend of theirs…Bobby? When Dean said nothing the man continued with his threats.

"Okay, how about this? Let's heal you from…stage four stomach cancer?"

Like a fly, Dean doubled over, coughing, and he spit blood into his palm. Nora stepped up to the man.

"Please stop! You're killing him!"

"That's the point, sweetheart."

Dean choked out, "no," and the man continued, "Ok, oh, let's get creative, let's see how Sam here does without lungs," he said looking at Sam and then turned to Nora and contemplated.

"And then Nora here can have an…oh what do they call it…aw yes, and ectopic pregnancy."

Nora fell to the floor feeling like she was being stabbed and she started to sweat profusely. She felt like something burst inside of her and she panicked when she saw blood starting to puddle underneath her.

"Nora, you should probably get that checked out by a doctor," he teased, "that kind of pregnancy is life-threatening. It's a serious condition, happens in early pregnancy. It's when you're embryo isn't quite where it's supposed to be and boom, it just explodes, you could go into shock you know?"

Dean sounded, blood trickling down his chin, "Stop it! Just kill us, but leave her out of it!"

"Kill you? Oh no, this is much more fun, and sadly I can't leave her out of it. She's too important."

Unexpectedly, a bright light, one that she had seen once in her childhood filled the room completely and she had to cover her eyes, so as to not be blinded. When she opened her eyes back up she saw that the men who had held her arms before were faced down on the ground. Behind them, stood a man, about the same height as Dean, had unruly dark brown hair and was wearing a suit and a tan trench coat. The man in the suit looks at him bewildered.

"How are you…"

The man in the trench coat interrupts, with a low gravelling voice, "Alive? That's a good question. How did these two end up on that airplane? Another good question. Cause the angels didn't do it. I think we both know the answer, don't we?"

"No, that's not possible."

"It scares you. Well, it should. Now put these three back together and leave. I won't ask again."

Nora compared the two men in the little time she had to forget everything she was hearing. The man in the suit was intimidating, but this man in the trench coat, he was demanding, frightening, intimidating, and she made a mental note to herself not to ever get on his bad side.

The man in the suit's lips straightened tightly, and he gave up, and vanished into thin air, causing Nora to jump and blink her eyes once, not believing she had just witnessed that. As soon as the man vanished her pain subsided, and she was delighted to see that Dean and Sam felt the same way as she, all three of them standing up wearily.

The man in the trench coat turned to Sam and Dean, "You two need to be more careful."

"Yeah, I'm starting to get that. Your frat brothers are bigger dicks than I thought," Dean said agitated.

"I don't mean the angels. Lucifer is circling his vessel. And once he takes it, those hex bags won't be enough to protect you."

The man walked over to them both and laid a hand on each of their chests, and they both gasped like something stung them.

"What the hell was that," Dean questioned him, rubbing his chest.

"An Enochian sigil. It'll hide you from every angel in creation, including Lucifer."

Dean looked at him distressed, "What, did you just brand us with it?"

In a very grave tone he answered, "No. I carved it into your ribs."

There was a long pause as they all took in what just happened and it was then that the events started to take their toll on Nora. She felt as if a house just landed on her, or that she was in a dream where monsters were real, and she had a part to play in some war between the devil and some dude named Michael. Panicked, she broke the silence.

"Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on? Who are you people?"

It was as if the man in the trench coat was suddenly aware of her presence for the first time since he arrived here in this storage room. He squinted his eyes and tilted his head looking at her.

"Who are you?"

"Nora, apparently," Dean answered.

"_What _are you," he asked.

Perplexed by his question she answered with the first thing that came in mind.

"A…Virgo?"

Sam rolled his eyes and joined the conversation.

"No, Cas, she came here on her own. Zachariah said she's a part of this."

"How," the man, or Cas, asked.

"You tell me," Nora directed at Cas.

He kept looking at her like he was trying to figure her out and said, "I cannot. That's why I asked you."

Irritated, Dean said, "She has something to do with Lucifer."

Cas' eyes widened slightly and he looked at Nora like a puzzle he had just solved. She felt uncomfortable under his stare, and realized that he knew something, and he wasn't telling her.

"Please," she begged, "I've had one hell of a stressful day. How did that…Zachariah…appear out of thin air, and you…Cas…you did too! Why are you talking about a war with Lucifer and some, Michael guy. You guys aren't crazy are you, because that would seriously be the cherry on top of a shit Sunday."

She saw Sam look down and Dean sighed, "Yeah, I wish. Listen Nora, there's no way to sugar coat this, but things that go bump in the night, it's all real. Angels, demons, the whole gang."

"How do you know that," she questioned.

"Well," Dean started, puzzled, "aside from the freak show that literally just happened, me and my brother here, we hunt those things."

She paused, recollecting all the horror movies she seen in her lifetime, the ghost stories people would tell. Why would anyone want to go after those things? The whole point was to not go towards the sound, a rule she broke much to her dismay, and look where that landed her.

"Why?"

"You just found out monsters are real, and you want to know why?"

Memories of Nora's childhood flashed in her mind, a memory that racked her brain her whole life, made her question life, her faith. The same memory that she wrote about in the opinion section of the Chicago Tribune that got her fired because they didn't want someone, "unstable" working and writing for them.

"Honestly, it's good to know."

"What could possibly be good about that," Dean asked, almost angrily.

Nora sighed and went into her story, "I saw something when I was a kid. I thought it was just a nightmare, that's what my dad told me, but the older I got, the more I realized that it wasn't."

Sam stepped in again, intensely interested suddenly.

"What did you see?"

Nora looked at Sam now and answered, "It was like, a witch, or something. It had these hands…the fingers looked like tree branches. Anyways, it came into my room, and hovered over me with…with its mouth open, but…then this white light, it was so bright it filled the room," Nora looked over at Cas, "like when you got here, and whatever was in there with me was gone, and the light went with it."

Cas spoke up then, and confidently said, "The light you saw. It was an angel. Someone is looking out for you."

"You mean like…metaphorically right?"

"No, I'm serious. An angel has been assigned to you."

"Is that what you are…and Zachariah?"

"Yes."

Sam spoke again, filling in Nora on why he became so interested just a minute ago.

"The thing you saw. It attacked me when I was a kid too."

Nora pressed her fingers to her temples and took in a deep breath. Somehow, with everything she was finding out in such little time, yet again words seemed to fail her, and she could only ask, "What is going on?"

"You need to be protected," Cas sternly noted, "An angel has been watching you since you were a child. You must be important."

He walked over to her and just as he had Sam and Dean, he laid his hand over her chest and she felt a burn deep in her ribs.

"Ow! Really? A little warning would be nice!"

"My apologies. You will be hidden now."

Another pressing matter entered Nora's thoughts that she needed to try and get information about out of Cas.

"So…my baby? Cas, do you have any idea why having this baby is a test? That's what Zachariah said."

There was a moment's hesitation, but he answered in an honest manner, "No, I don't. I'm sorry, but I _will _find out. For now, I think it would be best if you stay with them for awhile," he gestured towards Sam and Dean, "they'll keep you safe."

Dean didn't like the idea and immediately filled us all in on his thoughts of Cas' proposal.

"Now wait a minute. We have enough on our plates. We don't have time to babysit!"

"Dean, the demons will most likely be after her if she has anything to do with Lucifer, probably angels too."

"They probably already figured out where she lives," Sam added.

"Excuse me," Nora shouted realizing she felt like she was being passed around and given no right to explain herself or make a decision for herself. "I can't just leave with you! I don't even know you guys. How do I know you aren't the bad guys?"

Sam grinned, "You're still alive aren't you?"

Nora sighed, defeated, and nodded her head. They didn't do anything to her even after Zachariah and the other angels held her hostage, practically.

"Comforting, but none-the-less true…fine, you guys have a place to stay?"

Dean smiled a big, cheeky grin, "Not permanently. I'm afraid it's motel city for you, sweetheart."

"Wonderful," she said sarcastically.

They all turned to leave when Sam stopped, and turned to Cas.

"Hey Cas, were you really dead?"

"Yes."

"Then how are you back," Dean added.

And just as Zachariah had done just moments before, Cas vanished, and Nora could swear she heard the light flapping of wings echoing off the walls of the storage room.

Sam and Dean sighed, presumably annoyed.

"I take it he does that often," Nora asked.

"Yeah, that's sort of his thing," Dean said.

Nora smiled, "He's kind of like Batman." Sam and Dean turned toward her and peered down at her making her feel small and uncomfortable and she smiled back up at them trying to ease the tension she now felt. They both rolled their eyes and turned to head back out of the storage room, and willingly, but not entirely happy about it, Nora followed them.

**A/N: There you have it! Review please, I would really appreciate it. I promise, things will start to pick up, and you'll find out a lot more about Nora and her role. This is only the beginning, and it's not what I'm sure you're expecting. Stay tuned!**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

**Hello again! Thanks for the reviews, follows, favorites! So here's chapter 3! Hope you enjoy. As always, review and let me know what you're thinking. **

**Sorry, this chapter is more of a filler chapter, but you do get more insight into Nora's past that will be important in later chapters.**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories. **

"Wow, this is your car," Nora asked as she, Sam, and Dean walked out of the storage unit toward a sleek, black, Impala. Dean peered over his shoulder at her and smirked.

"Yeah, she's a beauty isn't she?"

"'67 Chevy Impala, right?"

Dean looked at her, raising his eyebrows, his eyes wide, and he lit up. Nora noticed and smiled smugly. He most likely didn't have too many girls so close to his car that actually knew what kind of car his was, and she didn't really know if that was something to be proud of.

"You're impressed," she stated more than asked.

"Definitely. You into cars or something?"

Nora shrugged and again had to bring up the thought of her father again in her mind, and in there she felt miserable, but on the outside she couldn't let these men see her like that.

"Not really. My dad just knew someone that had this car too. He was hard to forget."

"Well, he was a smart man. Best car in the world," Dean smiled.

Sam stepped around to the passenger side and held open the backseat door for Nora.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but we need to check on Bobby, Dean."

Dean scoffed and rolled his eyes, opening his door.

"Oh, Sam, you never fail to be a buzz kill. I appreciate the continuity, however."

Dean got into the car and Sam looked at Nora, rolling his eyes and nodded for her to get inside. She smiled weakly at him and mouthed thank you to him getting inside the back of the car.

They drove quite some time to a hospital and on the way told her all about this so-called, Bobby. From the sound of him, she thought he seemed like a real, sarcastic asshole, but the kind that actually use that sarcasm to teach you a lesson you don't get until later in life. However, he also seemed to take on a fatherly role in these brother's lives. He was there when their actual father wasn't. Nora smiled knowing that they at least had someone that still cared enough for them even when they weren't his responsibility.

When Nora was only 10 years old, her father, having been gone for a week straight, leaving her in a hotel room they had moved into after her mother died, came home entirely alarmed one night. He didn't even say hello when he walked through the door. He started to pace back and forth, and then throwing all of his belongings in the two bags he always carried with him. He told her to pack her things because he was going to take her to her Grandmother's home in Chicago. She tried to ask what was wrong, threw out so many questions, but he told her to never mind and quit worrying. Therefore, she stayed quiet, and allowed him to drag her to her Grandmother's home, in a quaint, suburb of Chicago, thinking she was spending the night. Little did she know that spending the night became eight more years. She hadn't seen her father in eight years. Her grandmother cared for her, of course, but it wasn't the same. She was already pretty old when Nora moved in; however, she could still be active and help in taking care of Nora. As time went on, it became more about Nora taking care of her Grandmother. Then, she moved into her own apartment, and went to college. Her father had called to congratulate her on being accepted at the University of Chicago. That was the first she had heard from him in those eight, long years. He didn't seem very genuine. He said it as if he was just reading off a grocery list of items he had to memorize, and read them to her in a completely flat tone of voice.

She never spoke to him again. The next time she did here from him, it was actually about him. The hospital called to let her know that her father had been in an accident and was killed on impact. They needed her to identify the body.

**3 Days Later.**

On the first day, Dean and Sam spoke to Bobby about finding some other way deal with this apocalypse issue. The brothers must have been dealing with this for quite some time because to Nora, they seemed, for lack of a better word…tired. Dean spewed some crazy idea that they should just screw them all, demons _and _angels. He said that this world, it's ours, and if they want a fight then they'll have to fight them instead and get the hell off our planet.

Sam left the room alone and stood in front of Nora outside the room who hadn't been able to come in. They wanted to wait for Nora to meet Bobby because he was in a "fragile" state, which she took to mean, he was in a rare, asshole form. "Yeah, we might want to wait a bit," he said solemnly.

So, there they were, three days later, and Nora still hadn't met Bobby. She sat on a bench with Sam, quietly, outside the room when suddenly Dean walked down the hall coming towards them with a manila envelope in hand.

Sam looked back into Bobby's room and saw him sitting in a wheelchair staring out the window somberly. Dean peered into the room following Sam's gaze and looked back at him sighing.

"It's been like three days now," he asked, "Maybe I'll give him a backrub."

"Dean," Sam scolded silently.

"Well, what, then?"

Nora perked up and had to offer something. She was tired of sitting out in the hallway not in the know.

"I want to know when I can meet him," she said.

Dean looked back at Bobby, "I don't know, he seems a little depressed still…"

"She's got to meet him at some point, Dean, it doesn't seem fair that we're just leaving her out her with nothing," Sam pointed out. It was starting to freak Nora out a little bit how much Sam seemed to always voice what she was thinking, like they were connected somehow.

"Yeah, maybe I can help cheer him up," she offered.

"He won't take kindly to strangers," Dean warned.

Nora stood up and laid her hand on Dean's arm assuring.

"Trust me, I can help."

After a moment's hesitation, Dean nodded and she walked into the room slowly. Bobby turned, hearing her come in and sighed looking back out the window.

"I hope you have good news, nurse."

"I'm actually, not a nurse."

He turned again and looked at her differently this time, his features hardened, and she saw his hand reaching down to something in his pocket of his bathrobe.

"I'm a friend of Sam and Dean's. I told them I wanted to speak with you."

Nora took a chair that was sitting next to his empty bed and brought her over to him, sitting it right in front of him. As soon as she sat down she opened her mouth to speak, but instead was greeted with a splash of cold water on her face. She was shocked at first, but not entirely surprised.

"Not a demon. They warned me you'd probably try to do that."

She took the sleeve of her sweater and wiped her face dry.

"Sorry, force of habit," he apologized, "So, what's the word. They send you in here to cheer me up," he said condescendingly.

Nora smiled. He was as smart as they made him seem.

"Something like that."

"Don't waste your breath. Who are you anyways?"

She held out her hand to greet him, but he didn't reciprocate her gesture, so she brought it back to sit in her lap.

"My name is Nora. I met the guys about three days ago. Trust me when I say this is all new to me. I met angels and demons, something I didn't even know existed, all in a span of about twenty minutes, so I can't even begin to imagine what it was like to be possessed by one."

Bobby looked up at her finally, instead of sadly staring out the window.

"Yeah, they told me what happened. I'm sorry, by the way."

There was a long pause before she spoke again.

"I'm not going to bullshit you. I don't know if you'll be okay. I do know, however, that you have two guys out there, worrying their asses off, even though they are too proud to admit it…and if you let me, I can be there for you too. I just found out four days ago that I have some sort of role to play in this end of the world crap too."

"Role?"

"Apparently, it has something to do with Lucifer. My baby is a part of it too. I'm pregnant, and well let's just say the doctors are baffled as to how after two days after I…well you know…could be seven weeks in."

Bobby looked at her, just as the doctor had, confused, frightened, unsure of what to say.

"How's that even possible," he asked.

"How is any of it," she sighed.

He looked at her sadly now. Nora had the conversation she would have had with him planned out before she came in, but words seemed to fail her yet again. Actually, saying all of these terrible, impossible, things aloud made their meanings suddenly change.

"I'm terrified. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up, but I don't. I'm still here, with these guys still here, and now I'm talking to you, and…I'm supposed to be cheering you up, but I think I just really needed someone like you to cheer me up. They said you are, and I quote, "a hard man to get to crack", but I also see someone very wise, and someone who could tell me, or at least lie to me and say everything is going to be okay."

He looked at her for a long moment. Maybe words were failing him too. He saw a woman on the edge of having a nervous breakdown, a woman who's hands were shaking, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks, foot tapping. He wanted to be able to tell her the truth, that if she had something to do with Lucifer in all of this crap, then it wasn't going to be a cakewalk. He knew, somewhere, maybe it was the look on her face, something in her eyes, that this woman had experienced a lot of heartache in her past, and now very present future. He couldn't tell her the truth, so he said what she wanted to hear.

"Everything is going to be okay."

She smiled, the smile not reaching her eyes, and looked down wiping the escaping tears. That's when the both noticed another presence out in the hallway. Bobby rolled his wheelchair over to the door just as Cas was telling the brothers that they would be hidden from the angels.

"Alright, enough foreplay, lay your damn hands on," he said to Cas.

No one spoke and he looked at all of them impatiently shouting, "Now!"

Cas sighed, a very human trait, Nora noticed and it almost looked completely foreign. It looked that way, she wondered how it must have felt to him

"I can't," he said reluctantly.

"Say again?"

Cas turned toward Bobby, now seemingly annoyed at having to explain himself.

I'm cut off from heaven and much of heaven's power. Certain things I can do. Certain things I can't."

Bobby was furious now. You could practically see the blood rushing and filling up his face.

"You mean to tell me you lost your mojo just in time to have me sit in a chair and rot for the rest of my life, not to mention while we got angels and demons practically crawling up our asses every second of our damn lives!"

Cas looked entirely uncomfortable, much like someone who didn't know how to react to someone wanting confrontation.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

"Yeah? Well shove it up your ass!"

Bobby turned in his chair and wheeled back over to the window where he was before. Dean raised his eyebrows and looked down at Nora.

"Nice work cheering him up, Nora," he teased.

"Dean," scolded Sam again.

Nora threw her hands up in the air, "At least he's talking now!"

"I heard that," Bobby yelled.

Becoming increasingly more annoyed Bobby closed the door to Bobby's room, practically shoving Nora aside.

"I don't have much time. We need to talk."

"Okay," Dean said.

Cas became very serious as he peered at all three of them intensely.

"You're plan to kill Lucifer…"

"Yeah you want to help," Dean asked curiously and hopefully.

Cas shook his head and bluntly stated, "No. It's foolish. It can't be done."

"Oh. Thanks for the support," Dean said scornfully.

Nora, deeply saddened piped up.

"What do you mean? If he's dead…or gone…or whatever happens to Satan, that ends it all doesn't it? We can all go back to normal. I'll no longer have a role to play."

Cas focused intently on Nora looking at her like he really felt sympathy for her, and in that moment, she really focused on him as well. If the whole thing about vessels was true, she wondered where and why Cas had chosen this man. What role did his vessel have to play that was so important? He looked like your run-of-the-mill, normal guy. He also happened to be very decent looking. In fact, all three of the men she was with happened to be incredibly good looking. The Nora she used to be would have, probably at this point, physically felt her ego being boosted up, but with everything happening, she was finding it hard to even focus on men right now. She blamed it on her hormones, which also must have been kicking in, earlier like her pregnancy.

"It's not that simple, Nora, I'm sorry. However, I believe I have the solution. There is someone besides Michael, strong enough to take on Lucifer. Strong enough to stop the apocalypse."

"Who," Dean questioned.

"The one who resurrected me, the one who put you on that plane," he said directly and only to the brothers, "God. I'm gonna find God," he ended smiling.

"God," Dean questioned.

"Yes," Cas stated as if we were all going to immediately be onboard with his solution.

Nora, however, being the only one, couldn't wrap her head around what he had just proposed. If she were religious, she would have been screaming and jumping up and down. It would be nice for a change to finally have an answer to one of life's most asked questions. If only someone else, someone that deserved to know, could hear what he just said, knowing fully that Cas was an angel, without thinking they were all one-step closer to entering a psych ward.

"So…he exists," she said in wonderment.

"Yes," Cas shouted, "He isn't in heaven. He has to be somewhere."

"You mean, he's here?! On Earth!?"

Sam laid a hand on her shoulder and looked at her, and with that one look, she knew he was telling her to keep her voice down. She nodded her apologies.

"Try New Mexico. I hear he's on a tortilla," Dean joked.

Cas looked at him very seriously and squinted his eyes, tilting his head to the side.

"No, he's not on any flatbread."

Dean rolled his eyes, and his body shifted into a hardened stance like he was about to be the bearer of bad news.

"Listen, Chuckles, even if there is a God, he is either dead-and that's the generous theory…"

"He _is _out there, Dean," Cas said.

"Or he's up and kicking and doesn't give a rat's ass about any of us."

Cas glared at him, and now Nora understood what it would be like to be in Cas' shoes…or his vessel's shoes…she was still trying to figure that out. She used to be religious, until so much bad had happened to her and she lost her faith in everything. All the bad events in her life were like Dean telling Cas, his father doesn't exist or just doesn't care about any of the shit going on. She felt sorry for him in that moment, relating to him in a way she didn't think she'd ever relate to again.

"I mean look," Dean continued, "look around you, man. The world is in the toilet. We are literally at the end of days here, and he's off somewhere drinking booze out of a coconut. All right?"

"Dean, stop," Nora tried to reason.

"Enough," Cas said sternly.

His demeanor changed, and he almost puffed himself up, looking much more demanding and intimidating like she had seen when she first met him.

"This is not a theological issue. It's strategic. With God's help, we can win."

"It's a pipe dream, Cas," Dean tried to reason with him.

It only seemed to make Cas angrier, and he advanced toward Dean menacingly. He got right in his face and started to speak, and stupidly Nora, not remembering that Cas could probably kill her with the flick of his finger stepped up and put a hand lightly on his shoulder to try and break whatever was threatening to happen, but he did nothing to back down, and pretty much ignored her hand on his shoulder.

"I killed two angels this week. My brothers. I'm hunted. I rebelled. And I did it, all of it, for you, and you failed. You and your brother destroyed the word…and I lost everything, for nothing. So keep your opinions to yourself."

"Cas please, we don't need that right now," Nora complained hesitantly, still worried that he could turn on her, but he didn't. He just continued to glare at Dean.

The tension was so high that none of them noticed when Bobby had suddenly appeared before them and spoke.

"You didn't drop in just to tear us a new hole. What is it you want," he asked.

Cas deflated somewhat and noticed Nora's hand on his shoulder and looked from it to her face, squinting like he didn't understand why it was there. Uncomfortable under his gaze, she removed her hand and looked back at Bobby.

"I did come for something. An amulet."

"And amulet? What kind," Bobby asked.

"Very rare. Very powerful. It burns hot in God's presence. It'll help me find him."

Sam suddenly spoke up. They had almost forgotten he was there, even though he towered over everyone.

"A God EMF?"

"Yes," Cas answered.

"Well, I don't know what you're talking about. I got nothing like that," Bobby said.

"I know you don't," Cas said looking over to Dean. His gaze dropped from Dean's face to the amulet around Dean's neck, and then he looked back up at his face.

"What, this?"

"May I borrow it," Cas asked.

"No," Dean rebuked.

"Give it to him, Dean," Nora demanded.

Dean looked at Nora unbelievably.

"Since when are you so chummy with Cas, Nora?"

"Since he seems to be the only one with a plan, _Dean._"

Defeated, Dean thought it over and said, "All right, I guess. But don't lose it," he says to Cas as he hands over to the amulet.

"Great, now I feel naked."

"I'll be in touch," Cas says, and just as he's about to disappear, Nora stops him.

"Wait! Have you found anything out about…me?"

He looked down at her solemnly again, always with bad news it seemed.

"I'm trying. There are few angels to trust now since I am being hunted."

Nora looked down disappointed, but then she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see it was Cas who placed his hand on her shoulder. He had copied her gesture from before.

"I'm trying my best. I won't give up on you."

Nora nodded and he took his hand off of her shoulder. He was about to leave again, but there was something else that was nagging at her.

"Oh and I have another question."

He turned toward her beckoning her with his gaze to continue.

"Is God really Morgan Freeman?"

He looked at her with that same confused look, and Dean stepped in pulling her towards him to make her leave with him and Sam.

"Don't answer that," he told Cas.

Dean was practically dragging her towards the opposite end of the hallway away from Cas and she was yelling back at him, " What? It's a legitimate question!" She peered back over her shoulder and Cas was already gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

**Thanks for the reviews, follows, favorites! So here's chapter 4! Hope you enjoy. As always, review and let me know what you're thinking.**

**Again, this is somewhat of a filler chapter with a few subtle hints about what's coming for Nora, which by the way will be revealed in the next chapter, so stay tuned! **

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories. **

"_Daddy? Is mama with the angels," a ten-year-old Nora, asked._

_Her father looked down at her, no expression at all, and plainly spoke to her while packing a bag quickly and messily. _

_ "Pack your things, Nora, we're leaving now!"_

_ "Daddy, what happened? She said she would be home."_

_He continued to ignore her and eventually started throwing her belongings into her own bag. _

_ "Daddy…"_

_He stopped and turned towards his daughter, seeing tears forming in her eyes, cheeks red, and chewing her bottom lip. _

_ "Something did happen to mommy, Nora, and if we don't leave the same will happen to both of us. So, we need to leave okay? I need to keep you safe."_

_I need to keep you safe._

Nora had been hearing a lot of that recently. She was sitting in a house she was dragged along to, well, that's not the complete truth. She refused to stay behind while the brothers jumped at the chance to help some friends of theirs named Ellen and Rufus. Hunting friends, to be exact. Rufus had called them, giving them very vague details about the town he was in, loads of demons apparently in River Pass, Colorado.

So there she sat when she heard a commotion upstairs. Dean strapped her with a gun and told her to wait for him to clear the place, but apparently, he didn't seem to have everything in control, and once again, not in her best interest she rushed up the stairs to see him being pummeled by Rufus.

"Rufus! The polluted water, the shooting star, the red Mustang, it's War," Dean tried to reason with him.

"You're damn right it is," Rufus said landing Dean another punch in the face.

Nora took charge and advanced on Rufus trying to hold his arm back and in that moment they both looked each other in the eyes and were seeing the same black encompassing both of their eyes. The only difference is, Nora seemed to understand better what was happening than Rufus, shockingly, and he took a hold of her wrist and punched her as well, sending her crashing on the floor. Dean rose up at the turn of events and took the chance to tackle Rufus when he wasn't looking, also sending both of them to the ground.

"The horseman," Dean explained.

Rufus calmed, somewhat, halting his urge to fight Dean.

"Horseman?"

"Yes. He's turning us against each other…"

"The Horseman, War?"

"Yes," Dean panted.

They both stood up and Dean immediately walked over to Nora still sitting on the floor rubbing her jaw and wincing.

"Did you figure this out all on your own, genius," Rufus asked.

"I had a little help," he said, and leaned down holding up Nora's chin to inspect the damage done.

"You okay," he asked her anxiously.

Still holding her jaw gently with her hand she looked up at him and answered, "Well, I just got punched, but yeah, just peachy."

"Come on then, we gotta get back to Ellen," Dean said.

They all cautiously walked closely to each other. Nora was behind the two of them when she heard the snap of a twig and turned to look behind her, when she turned back around a hand darted out and covered her mouth, silencing her plea for help. She was turned around to see a young blonde girl holding her, the same black eyes as everyone else, and with one clean punch across her face, Nora was knocked unconscious.

It felt like she had been asleep for hours when she came to, her eyes fluttering open. She slowly looked around the room and saw only an abandoned, empty bedroom. She moved slightly to sit herself up, but something rough tugged her arms. She looked down and found herself bound by thick, tight ropes wrapped around her arms and legs holding her to a chair. She shook her arms, testing to see if she could release herself, but it was no use.

"Good to see you awake," came Sam's voice behind her.

Startled, she turned her head and saw him in the same position just behind her.

"Who did this, and why," she asked.

"Jo and Rufus. I haven't seen Rufus. He left Jo here to watch me. Then she brought you in here too. They think we're demons, but we're not. It's..."

"War," Nora finished, "we figured that out too. How did you?"

"I got a visit from War."

Nora chuckled, "Naturally. So he is causing all of this I take it?"

"Yeah."

There was a long silence in the room. The only noise they could hear was footsteps downstairs and a few muffled voices. Nora looked at the door towards the sound and was about to cry for help, but Sam interrupted.

"It's no use, they just think we're demons trying to lure someone upstairs."

Nora sighed and turned back facing the wall. There was another pause.

"How do you always seem to know what I'm going to say," she asked.

Sam laughed and replied, "Didn't know that I always did."

"It's kind of creepy," she laughed.

"Sorry…hey Nora…"

"Yeah?"

"There's something that's bugging me. Everything that's happening…you're so calm about it. I mean, you just willingly decided to tag along and never listen to us when we say stay behind. Why?"

Nora was incredibly pleased that Sam couldn't see the smile fade from her lips. She wasn't entirely ready to dive into her childhood with someone she barely knew. Not to mention, nobody really ever asked her about her childhood. She made sure of herself to never bring up any childhood story with anyone she knew. That made it easy not to make a ton of friends, so she wouldn't have reason to bring up anything about herself. However, she couldn't just stay silent, so she explained what she could without having a complete meltdown.

"I didn't have the best upbringing. My father…he…well he kept a lot of things to himself. When I'd ask, he'd ignore me or…anyways, my mother died when I was ten, and he never failed to remind me of that. We moved around a lot after. Never stayed in a school long enough to make any friends, and wherever we were at the time my dad was always gone, so I practically raised myself."

"Sounds like my dad," Sam said sadly.

"At least you knew what he did though. I've made up a shitload of stories of what he was doing just to make myself feel better."

"Did he ever tell you," Sam asked.

Nora sighed and replied in a mocking tone; mostly because she always figured the answer he gave her she never believed anyways.

"He told me he was a roadie for some shit band trying to make it. I mean it explains why we moved around so much, but I didn't believe him. When he'd come home…he looked like he was in so much pain all the time, drained of energy. He'd have a fresh cut or bruise all the time. I mean, you set up stage equipment, how huge is the possibility that you'd get hurt every time?"

Of course, Nora couldn't see the look on Sam's face at her answer, but if she could, she would've seen the troubled expression etched on his face. Sam had come up with a conclusion of what he really thought Nora's father did, but he kept it to himself figuring it would be too soon, wrong place, wrong time, to drop something like that on her.

"Sam…what happened? What brought all of this on?"

Sam clenched his jaw and stared at the floor uncomfortably.

"It was me. There were these seals that if all were broken, Lucifer would be set free. It happened. They were all broken, and I set him free because I sided with a demon over my own brother…because she betrayed us."

"That's why you and Dean have been acting the way you guys do?"

"He doesn't trust me."

"You didn't know. You just did what you thought was right."

"I drank demon blood."

Nora looked up, disgusted and terrified of Sam's confession.

"Why?"

"It made me stronger. I thought if I could be stronger, somehow…it doesn't matter now. He looks at me different now…like I'm a monster."

Nora couldn't think of anything to tell him to make him feel better. She just continued to stare around the room in silence, now feeling slightly frightened being in the same room with him.

Just downstairs Rufus and Dean had burst through the door of the house Sam and Nora were tied up in, and was greeted by a gun to the face, Ellen holding it.

"Whoa, whoa," Dean yelled holding his hands up in the air.

"We all on the same page," Ellen asked.

Dean and Rufus looked around and nodded. Dean looked over at Jo and she looked back at him apologetically. He was about to ask what's wrong, but Ellen interrupted.

"Where's Nora?"

Dean suddenly realized she was standing with them and started to panic. He turned and walked out onto the front porch of the house and looked around the neighborhood. He couldn't shout or he'd bring trouble straight to them.

"Damn it, where's Sam," he said irritated.

"They're both upstairs," said Jo, "I didn't know…" her explanation trailed off.

Dean ran up the stairs and checked two rooms before finally finding Sam and Nora tied up in the same room.

"Finally," Nora breathed. "Thanks by the way, for taking forever to notice I was gone."

Dean smiled apologetically and kneeled down . He took her chin in his hand and turned it side-to-side inspecting the damage. Nora had a scrape on her left cheekbone and the early stages of a black eye.

"Yeah, I'm getting sick of being punched."

"You okay?"

"Yes, just get us out of here."

He nodded and began to untie the ropes around the two of them all the while finding it important to remind her that he said she could've stayed behind like he had asked her to.

"Yeah, right. You know, I can handle myself, Dean," she said aggravated.

"Clearly."

"I wish you'd stop treating me like a damn kid. I handled myself for twenty-one years!"

Once she was untied she stood up and at the comment she just threw at Dean, he abruptly grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and held her close to his face.

"That very well may be true, but you aren't the only one to look after, or did you forget that you got yourself knocked up?"

"Dean," Sam tried to make him ease up on her.

Dean ignored him and loosened his grip on Nora's shirt. When she saw the uneasy look in her eyes, he let go of her and stepped back ashamed of what he just did. He turned his attention towards Sam and began untying his ropes. When Sam was free, Dean made his way swiftly towards the door before saying, "We gotta move. War's still out there. Come on."

Nora stood still in the middle of the room and Sam walked up behind her lying his hand on her shoulder comfortingly.

"Come on," he said seeing what he went through with his own brother directed at a scared woman he barely knew.

A couple minutes later, the group stood in a circle in the living room discussing what to do.

"It's War, but I just can't figure out how he's doing it," Dean said.

"The ring," Sam clarified.

Almost as if a light bulb turned on in Dean's brain, his eyes widened at the realization of just how significant War's ring had become.

"The ring…right. He turned it right before everyone started hallucinating and going bat-shit insane."

"So how do we get him," Nora asked.

"We gotta move, I've got an idea," Dean said picking up his shotgun and sheathing his knife.

Nora walked out of the house last and noticed a knife sitting in the coffee table next to the couch. She picked it up and hid it in her back pocket, hurrying outside with the others.

A few minutes later Sam, Dean, and Nora were watching just a few feet away from where War and his mustang were. As his back was turned they all three of them ran over to him with soft steps and just as he was getting into his car, Sam and Dean grabbed both of his arms and slammed him against the hood of his car.

Nora walked over next to him. He laughed at the sight of her. Sam unsheathed his knife, but Nora raised her hand to stop him.

"Don't Sam. I've got this," she said still looking War in the eyes.

Shocked, Dean looked over at her, "Nora, no. Let Sam do it."

She ignored him and pulled her knife she found out of her pocket. War looked down at it and laughing mockingly said, "Whoa. Okay, that's a sweet little knife, but come on. You can't kill War, kiddos."

Nora's face went from stern to menacing in an astonishingly small amount of time. Sam and Dean held War firmly against the car while Nora took a hold of War's hand baring the ring and slammed it flat against the car.

"We know," she smiled, and cut the finger off with the ring. He screamed in pain and Nora looked over at just Dean with anger rolling off her tongue as she told him, "And you think I'm helpless."

She walked away from the brothers who looked at each other in awe and back at Nora's form that shrank in the distance, watching the knife she held onto suddenly fall from her tight grip, clanging on the ground.

They released War from their grip and he held his bleeding hand stepping away from them.

"By the way," he began, "tell that bitch…her dad says hello." He turned away from them and Dean kneeled down picking up the ring. When he looked back up, War and the mustang had vanished.

**Later.**

Nora stayed, sulking, in the backseat of the Impala while the brothers sat at a picnic table just in front of the car. She could see they were both very serious, talking to each other, but couldn't make out what they were saying. From the looks of it, though, it looked like a conversation only meant for the two of them.

She leaned her head against the window looking at Dean and reminded of her father. They treated her exactly the same way, like a scared little damsel in distress. She got years of being treated like that, and just when she thought she was free of it, here came this man who she had barely known a week treating her just the same. She was tired of being told what she could and couldn't do. Tired of being told to stay behind. It wasn't that she was being intentionally being irresponsible, she knew she had to keep this baby safe, but a thought popped into her mind that scared her to death.

_Why do I have to keep this baby safe, _she thought to herself. _If Lucifer has anything to do with it, it must be evil. If I get rid of it…_

Her thoughts were interrupted by the slamming of the driver's side door. Dean had already gotten into the car without her noticing.

She saw Sam walking towards a pickup truck and say something to him. He opened the door and before he stepped into the truck, he looked back at Nora who had edged up closer to the front beside Dean's seat looking at him. He barely gave her a smile and got into the truck.

"Where's he going," she asked Dean anxiously.

Dean put the keys into the ignition and started the car.

"He's taking a break."

She turned her head towards him and swallowed.

"And you're just letting him.?"

He dropped his hands from the steering wheel and sighed looking back at her.

"It's just better this way, okay?"

Nora sighed and looked down confused, but then she remembered the conversation she and Sam had in the house while they were both tied up. Based on what he had told her, she figured out that this vacation of Sam's would be a long one. In only a week, she had noticed that these two meant the world to each other, but something was tearing them apart, and now she knew.

"You gonna stay back there or hop in the front," he asked her.

She sat back, grabbed her bag and got out of the back of the car and into the passenger seat.

"Guess you're stuck with me, so you better get used to it," he said putting his hands back on the wheel and driving to wherever the coming of the end of days lead them.

**There you have it! Thanks again for the reviews, follows, favorites, etc. They mean a lot to me. I will most likely post the next chapter sometime tomorrow, but I can't make any promises, so be patient my lovelies! Don't forget to review. **


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

**Hello everyone! I know, I said last chapter that I would have most likely had this chapter up last Friday, but alas, things got in the way, and honestly a bad case of writer's block. Anyways, here it is! BTW HOLY CRAP SEASON 9 TONIGHT! Shitty thing is, I live in Switzerland where good TV doesn't exist, so I'll have to avoid tumblr and any other site that will spoil it. I'll find a way somehow. **

**So, here's the new chapter. Please review!**

Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories.

Nora felt different. Not in her major change of lifestyle. Not in her personality. She didn't feel different emotionally, mentally, nothing like that. It was physically. It was the same feeling you got after a huge Thanksgiving dinner. You felt tired, like you'd explode any minute.

She consciously rested a hand on her stomach feeling a slight bump forming where it used to be flat. That's odd. She stood up from the bed opposite of Dean's, and walked into the bathroom where he stood cleaning the blood from his recent hunt off of his jacket. Nudging him aside, she lifted her tank top up to reveal her stomach, and saw that it seemed to have started to poke out above her waistband of her jeans a bit. She rubbed a soothing hand over her stomach and looked up at Dean in the mirror, his face very focused on the bloodstain.

"Do I look fat to you," she asked.

He stopped rubbing at the stain and looked at her panicked. His eyes shifted quickly glancing at her stomach and then back to her eyes. He looked as if he was desperately, and appropriately, trying to find a way to tell her the truth without getting punched.

"Is that a trick question," he asked cautiously.

She saw the alarm in his eyes cracked a smile at him. She had witnessed him for the past few weeks kill anything that dare harm him or her, vampires, demons, the whole lot, and now he was frightened of a 5'6, twenty-one-year-old girl asking him a question most men knew always to lie about.

"I'm pregnant, and under most circumstances I would be punching you for hesitating,, but since I'm pregnant with a mutant X-Men baby, I'll give you a free pass," she laughed.

She watched the tension practically roll off Dean's shoulders and he continued to scrub the blood out of his jacket.

"I mean…I guess you're starting to look…pregnant," he said carefully.

"Right? I mean, when the doctor told me I was seven weeks in I looked it up and your stomach does look like it pokes out a little, but this…this looks a lot longer than seven weeks. Looks more like fifteen. It's only been a couple of weeks since I found out."

He looked at Nora unsure of what to say to her. The mystery of her pregnancy was about as mysterious as trying to figure out what the hell was going to happen in the world. How was he going to stop the apocalypse? Without Sam, no less. All he had was a pregnant woman who couldn't shoot a gun, and an angel who rarely ever showed up.

Instead of trying to make sense of why Nora's stomach was getting larger at an unlikely speed, he continued with the bloodstain and she kept staring at herself in the mirror. Dean's gaze was attentive on the stain, and Nora's on her stomach that neither of them noticed the figure standing closely behind them. Dean looked up and startled saw Cas, awkwardly staring back at him. Like a domino effect, Nora jumped when Dean had.

Dean slammed his hand on the sink, "God. Don't do that."

Castiel, completely oblivious to what he had done to both of their nerves greeted them. No one said anything for a couple of seconds until Dean turned around and realized the close proximity of Cas' form to himself. He sighed and avoided looking at him directly. Cas continued to stare at him, almost quizzically.

"Cas, we talked about this. Personal space," Dean said, annoyed.

Cas looked at him still and then looked down, "My apologies," he said in his emotionless tone. He stepped back and Dean, nodding his thanks walked out of the bathroom. Cas stayed in, letting him pass and shifted his gaze over to Nora. He looked at her differently than he had Dean. Still questioningly, yes, he tended to look at everyone like that, but there was something different. Was it a look of realization? Like he had finally figured something out about her. It was when she felt the upturn of her lips that she realized why he was looking at her differently. She was unaware that she had been slightly grinning at him. Uncomfortable with herself and the entire situation she walked past him and out of the bathroom to which he followed her out.

"How'd you find us? I thought we were flying below angel radar," Dean asked.

"You are. Bobby told me where you were," Cas answered.

Cas started to look around the room and was trying to assess the situation in front of him. Clothes were strung up, everywhere there was free space, a result of Dean grudgingly agreeing to go buy her clothes since she couldn't go back to her apartment. In this millions of years observing humans, he seemed to recognize what the cause of this explosion of clothes came from. He then looked up at the two of them, saw Nora's hair in disarray, her shirt was rumpled and revealed just an inch of skin of her stomach. For the first time, Cas noticed Dean wasn't wearing a jacket on top of another jacket, just a solid color t-shirt and jeans, both of their shoes off and thrown in every which direction.

"Did I…interrupt something," Cas asked hesitantly.

Nora, confused followed Cas' gaze at the clothes around the room and both her and Dean's appearances, and felt like the contents of her stomach were rising into her throat.

"Ew, Cas, no," she exclaimed.

Dean at first made a disgusted face, but then looked over at Nora and frowned, insulted. Anger directed at Nora, Dean explained, "No, man, she's just a slob."

Nora shot him a look and said nothing. Cas had already moved onto a new topic, unaware of how uncomfortable he had just made the two of them. He took another careful look around the room and asked, "Where's Sam?"

At the mention of his name, Nora could see how, for lack of a better word, sad, Dean became. It had been difficult without him. She felt safer with the two of them around. Dean would leave her in the various motel rooms by herself and a few hex bags, just to be safe. He would come back covered in the blood of whatever creature he had just killed, stone-faced, cold. She saw right through his "don't-give-a-crap" bullshit persona he put on. He was lost without Sam, and if she was going to be completely honest with herself, she felt lost too. She couldn't quite pinpoint why it felt like since he left, a piece of her left with him. She felt connected to him in a way she couldn't explain, and didn't dare bring up to Dean. All she knew was that the day he came back, if he came back, was the day the both of them would be whole again.

"We're taking separate vacations for awhile," Dean said, always trying to make a joke out of his pain. "You find God, yet? More importantly, can I have my damn necklace back, please?"

"No, I haven't found him yet. That's why I'm here. I need your help."

Nora perked up seeing a way to get out of this motel, finally. She turned her full attention on Cas.

"Great! What do you need," she asked excitedly.

He looked at her and sighed, " I'm sorry, Nora, just Dean."

The excitement drained from her whole body and instead filled her body with annoyance.

"Of course. Is this because I'm a woman?"

"No. It's because you're a _pregnant _woman with no gun skills. So what? God hunt? Not interested," Dean said, killing two birds with one stone.

"It's not God. It's someone else," Cas retorted.

"Who," Dean asked.

"Archangel. The one who killed me."

Somehow, with everything that had happened in Nora's life, she was still amazed whenever she found out something from fairytales and in this case the bible, was real.

"An archangel? They're real?"

"His name is Raphael."

Dean chucked a little and asked, "You were wasted by a teenage mutant ninja angel?"

Cas, as always, didn't understand what Dean was talking about. An adolescent ninja turtle? Turtles can't kill angels, not to mention be ninjas. Ignoring this Cas continued.

"I've heard whispers that he's walking the earth. This is a rare opportunity."

"For what, revenge," Dean asked in frustration.

"Information."

"So what, you think you can find this dude and he's just going to spill God's address?"

In all seriousness, Cas replied, "Yes, because we are gonna trap him and interrogate him. Nora, I also believe he knows about you."

"Well then I have to go," Nora stated.

"You're serious about this," Dean asked.

"Let him go, Dean," Nora said still staring intently at Cas.

Dean glanced at Nora unbelievably and asked her, "Give me one good reason why I should do this, Nora. And you aren't exactly one that needs to be going anywhere near angels right now, they want you too."

Nora couldn't figure out any other way to persuade Dean to let her go and pitifully in almost a whisper pleaded, "I need to know, Dean."

"What's in it for me? I'm sorry, Nora, that's not good enough."

Cas, watching the conversation in front of him answered Dean.

"You're Michael's vessel, and no angel will dare harm you."

"Oh, so I'm your bullet shield."

Cas, seemingly giving up on trying to convince Dean, exasperatingly gave his final plead to Dean.

"I need your help because you are the only one who'll help me. Please."

Dean sighed, seeing the desperate looks on both Cas and Nora's faces and gave in against his better judgment.

"Fine. Where is he?"

"Maine, let's go," Cas said raising his two fingers to Dean's forehead, and noticeably to Nora, not hers.

"Whoa," Dean said backing away from Cas.

"What," Cas asked.

Surprisingly, with no amount of embarrassment, Dean said, "Last time you zapped me, I didn't poop for a week."

Cas looked at him, squinting his eyes and considering Dean's situation.

"First of all…gross…and I'm sorry, Dean, I know you hate when I say I'm coming along, but you also said you had to look after me now. So, I'm going," Nora said starting to pack up her things in a bag.

"Nora…"

"No, I'm coming. I have some role in this too. Maybe they won't hurt me either, don't you think," She said first questioning Dean, but then looking at Cas for his opinion.

He nodded and pleased with herself, she looked back to Dean who sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Damn it. Fine, but we're driving."

**Waterville, Maine **

Nora was actually impressed that in the short amount of time Sam had been m.i.a., Dean told her that they often, very often actually, pretended to be all kinds of people, but most of all, FBI. Even more impressed that he had managed to make a box full of fake badges and ID's with her picture and different names in that small amount of time. He even bought her nice black dress pants, black blazer, and white blouse with high-heeled black shoes to complete the look.

So when the three of them arrived in Maine, Cas, already dressed the part and the two of them stepped out of the Impala dressed sharp and ready to enter the Sherriff's department. Well, almost ready.

"Are we sure this is going to work," Nora asked nervously, pulling and stretching her clothing making sure it looked presentable. Of course, I do it all the time. You'll be fine. Just let me do most of the talking. By the way, why are we here," He asked Cas.

"A deputy sheriff laid eyes on the archangel," he answered.

"And he still has eyes," Dean asked in disbelief. "So, what's the plan?"

"We'll tell the officer that he witnessed an angel of the Lord, and the officer will tell us where the angel is," he said, perplexed, as if Dean was just supposed to understand what they would tell the officer, the truth.

"Seriously, you're gonna walk in there and tell him the truth?"

"Why not?"

"Because we're humans," Nora said.

Nora took one glance at Cas' appearance and walked over to stand directly in front of him. Dean pulled out another fake ID from the trunk of his car and gave it to Nora who put it in the inside pocket of Cas' trench coat. She then continued to adjust his coat and tightened his tie.

"And when humans want something, really, really, bad," she said in between fixing his appearance, "we lie."

Dean looked at Nora almost like a proud father at how fast she caught on with the hunter life and smiled.

"Why?"

Cas looked at her very interested in knowing the answer. Finally, she was done fixing him up and laid her hands on his chest, tapping them both there to signal she was done and smiling she answered, "Because that's how you become President."

Cas blinked and looked off trying to consider what she was saying, she watched him give a look of understanding, or attempted understanding, and he looked back at her, and then her hands that still lay on his chest. She noticed and forcefully brought her hands back to her sides.

They all three walked into the Sherriff's office and Dean said, "Deputy Framingham?"

The deputy turned around and Dean reached into his suit jacket and pulled his FBI ID.

"Hi. Alonzo Mosely, FBI. These are my partners, Eddie Moscone, and Carrie Dababi."

At the sound of Nora's fake alias name, she turned to Dean and scowled at him. He looked back at her and cracked a smug smile. She supposed he thought he was so clever coming up with a name that sounded like carry the baby. Haughty bastard.

Nora turned her attention back to the deputy and smiled and her and Cas said nothing, and did nothing. Dean cleared his throat and said, "Also FBI."

Dean stared at the two of them and in turn, they turned and looked at each other. It seemed at the exact same moment they caught on, and simultaneously reached for their badges, pulling them out and opening them up, both badges upside down.

Dean rolled his eyes and turned both of their badges back around.

He tried to laugh it off and told the deputy, "They're, uh, new. Mind if we ask a few questions?"

Cas looks at the ID, curious, as Nora glanced at him nervously and shrugged her shoulders signaling to put the ID's back in their jacket pockets. He followed her lead. The deputy agreed, "Yeah, sure. Talk here, though."

He indicated his right ear, leading the three of them to his office.

Sitting down and signaling for the three of them to sit in the chairs opposite of him he said, "Hearing's all blown to hell in this one."

"That happen recently?"

"Yeah. Gas station. Why you're here, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. You mind just, uh, running us through what happened?"

Framingham nodded and answered, "A call came in. Disturbance out at the Pump and Go on Route 4."

"What kind of disturbance?"

"Would not have believed my eyes if I hadn't seen it myself. We're talking a riot. Full scale."

"How many?"

"Thirty, forty, in all-out kill-or-be-killed combat?"

"Any idea what set them off," Nora chimed in, much to Dean's dismay.

"It's angels and demons, probably," Cas answered matter-of-factly. Framingham looked at Castiel like he was crazy, as in sane person who didn't know what they knew would. Looking away from Cas the deputy continued, but Cas looked back at him and continued to speak

"They're skirmishing all over the globe."

"Come again," Framingham asked him turning back to Dean looking for why his partner would say something so strange.

"What did he say," he asked.

Dean and Cas answered the deputy at the same time.

"Nothing. Nothing."

"Demons. Demons."

Smiling at the deputy, Nora elbows Cas and winces in pain when it hurt her more than him. He acted as if he didn't even feel it, but then turned and looked at her squinting and wondering why she nudged him. He looked forward again seeming to understand and stayed silent.

"Demons, you know, drink, adultery. We all have our demons, Walt," Dean said trying to cover everything up.

Framingham looked between the three of them and said, "I guess."

"Anyway," Dean continued, "What happened next?"

"Freaking explosion, that's what. They said it was one of those underground gas tanks, but, uh, I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Wasn't your usual fireball. It was, um—"

"Pure white," Dean stated..

"Yeah. Gas station was leveled. Everyone was...it was just horrible. And I see this one guy, kneeling, real focused-like, not a damn scratch on him."

"You know him?"  
"Donnie Finneman. Mechanic there."

"Let me guess, he just, uh, vanished into thin air," Dean smiled.

Framingham looked at him like he was either an idiot or mocking him.

"Uh, no, Kolchak. He's down at Saint Pete's."

Castiel turned to Dean and leaned closer to him saying seriously, "Saint Pete's," like it was he who figured out the archangel's location.

"Thank you," Dean smiled.

**Saint Peter's Hospital**

The three of them stood outside the room of the patient Framingham spoke of, seeing a frail man sitting in a wheelchair, unmoving.

"I take it that's not Raphael anymore," Dean asked what was on everyone's mind.

"Just an empty vessel," Cas answered.

Nora saw the way Dean looked in on this man's form. He looked, altogether lifeless, a vegetable. He sat in the middle of the room and said nothing, stayed completely still.

"So, is this what I'm looking at if Michael jumps in my bones," Dean asked.

"No, not at all. Michael is much more powerful. It'll be far worse for you."

Nora scoffed at Cas, "Well don't sugarcoat it, Cas."

"Why would I put sugar on…"

"Never mind."

Dean looked away after Cas' revelation, and a hint of fear etched across his face that Nora caught, but said nothing of it.

**A couple hours later.**

Dean walked through the empty cabin Cas brought them to, paging through his father's journal. He set it down on the table and turned to see Cas holding a ceramic jar.

"Where've you been?"  
"Jerusalem."

"Oh, how was it," Nora asked sarcastically, mad for dropping her and Dean off there and leaving them for two hours.

"Arid," he answered sternly, setting the jar on the table.

"What's that?"

"It's oil. It's very special. Very rare," he said sitting down at the table opposite of Nora.

"Okay, so we trap Raphael with a nice vinaigrette?"

"No."

"So this ritual of yours, when does it got to go down?"

"Sunrise."

"Tell me something. You keep saying we're gonna trap this guy. Isn't that kinda like trapping a hurricane with a butterfly net?"

No, it's harder," he said, again in his stern manner. Nora couldn't help but smile at all of his responses. She had met Zachariah and he seemed to be so much more culturally aware than Cas, but she couldn't really blame the guy. He was so serious about his missions and his father that he just didn't have time. Although you'd think with the amount of time he's been alive, or whatever you want to call him, observing humans he would have peeked into someone's home and watched a TV show every once in awhile.

"Do we have any chance of surviving this?"

"You do," Cas looked between the two of them.

"So odds are you're a dead man tomorrow," Dean stated and Nora's mouth dropped slightly. He couldn't die. They'd already lost Sam, they couldn't lose him too.

"Yes."

Sighing, Dean grabbed a beer off the table sitting next to Cas who watched him and Dean asked,

"Well. Last night on earth. What are your plans?"

Almost sorrowfully, Cas answered looking out the window next to him, "I just thought I'd sit here quietly."

"Come on, anything? Booze, women?"

At the words that came out of Dean's mouth, Cas looked up at him with wide eyes and turned away nervously.

You have been with women before. Right? Or an angel, at least?"

Nora looked at Dean annoyed, but couldn't help looking back at Cas to wait for his response, but Cas rubbed the back of his neck, not answering.

"You mean to tell me you've never been up there doing a little cloud-seeding?"

As if suddenly offended Cas shot back, "I've never had occasion, okay?"

"All right," Dean said setting his beer down and grabbing his jacket, "Let me tell you something. There are two things I know for certain. One, Bert and Ernie are gay. Two, you are not gonna die a virgin. Not on my watch. Let's go."

"Dean, come on, leave him alone," Nora said suddenly attuned to just what crazy idea Dean had cooking in his head.

"Come on, you're coming too Nora," Dean yelled walking out of the cabin. Nora sighed and looked over at Cas who looked the most scared she had ever seen him, maybe even the only time she had ever seen him look so terrified. He stared after Dean got up and followed, so Nora hurried to catch up.

**Thirty Minutes Later**

"Why am I even here," Nora said, her voice muffled due to her hands covering her face in shame. Dean takes a swig of his beer and looks up at Castiel who looks completely terrified.

"Hey. Relax, we're both here for you. Right Nora?"

She looked up and sneered silently at him, her eyes squinted, her forehead wrinkled.

"Yeah, remind me why?"

"Moral support," he beamed.

Nora slammed her head back on his arms resting on the table.

"This is a den of iniquity. I should not be here," Cas fumed.

"Dude, you full-on rebelled against heaven. Iniquity is one of the perks," Dean said looking around the brothel. He spotted a blonde, skinny, girl in what might as well have been no clothes at all approach their table.

"Showtime," Dean smiled..

"Hi. What's your name," she said directly to Cas.

Nora watched him try desperately not to make any sort of eye contact with her, perhaps thinking if he didn't look at her, she'd go away.

"Cas," Dean exclaimed.

Cas jumped and looked at the girl, petrified.

"His name is Cas. What's your name?"

"Chastity."

Nora couldn't help but jeer and role her eyes.

"That's rich," she chuckled, and _Chastity _shot her the most supreme "bitchface".

Cas looked over to Nora sitting next to him and…the poor guy. He didn't even have to say anything. Nora knew from the look on his face that he was pleading with her help him get out of this situation.

"Wow. Is that kismet or what, buddy? Well, he likes you, you like him, so dayenu," Dean encouraged.

Chastity tugged at Cas' arm beckoning him to follow her, and again he looked between her and Dean, his gaze finally locked with Nora's.

"Come on, baby," Chastity purred. Nora saw the way Chastity was looking at him, like she was going to eat him up and it suddenly struck a nerve in Nora's body.

"Wait! Dean, maybe this isn't a good idea," Nora complained.

"What are you talking about it, of course it is. Don't be a cock-blocker Nora. Nobody likes those kind of people."

She leaned over to the table closer to Dean.

"I'm just saying, he isn't exactly…experienced. In more ways than one," she whispered.

Dean ignored her, rolling his eyes and getting up from the table. He catches Cas' arm as he begins to walk past and says, " Hey, listen. Take this."

He handed him a stack of cash to which Cas stared at it, confused.

"If she asks for a credit card, no. Now just stick to the basics, okay? Do not order off the menu. Go get her, tiger," he smirked slapping him on the shoulder. Castiel stayed put and again looked over at Nora who mouthed her apologies.

"Don't make me push you," Dean warned.

Cas gulped and took the money, turning to follow Chastity. Dean sat back down glowing with pride like he had just taught his son how tie his shoes or something. Shaking her head at him, Nora sighed, "We're both going to hell for this."

Dean smiled and then his expression turned into a frown.

Well, cheers to you," he half-smiled, raising his glass to clink with hers. She made no attempt to clink her glass with his and he awkwardly lowered his glass taking an uncomfortable swig from it.

"Why are you so against this anyways. We're both…experienced."

"You might be."

He looked at her puzzled.

"What do you mean? You're pregnant, so…"

Mortified that she had to explain herself, to Dean of all people, she focused on picking at her nails.

"A couple of weeks ago…was my first time."

Dean's eyes widened and he set his glass down, put both his elbows on the table, leaning forward.

"Are you serious?"

Nora found herself getting agitated by his response. So typical, of course he would act like it was such a shock that a twenty-one-year-old girl stayed a virgin.

"Why is that so hard to believe?"

He chuckled, "I mean, look at you. You're…a pretty girl, I just thought you'd have…really? Never?"

"You know some of us have a little bit of something called self-respect. Unlike you, I don't throw myself at every person I find attractive within a five-foot radius!"

"Ok, geez. Calm down, Margaret Sanger."

"I just, I don't know, worry about him. He kind of seems like a kid, you know?"

"Yeah, a kid that can smite the holy crap out of you."

They both laughed at the mental image that appeared in both of their minds until they both heard a deafening shriek coming from one of the private rooms. Transforming into hunter mode, Dean shot up and ran back to the room, but stopped seeing Chastity screaming at a very stunned, Cas.

"Get out of my face! Leave me alone! Bastard! Screw you, jerk," she screamed at him.

She threw something at Cas, who was a little disheveled. His tie was loose, the first few buttons on his shirt undone, and Nora found herself sighing in relief.

"I'll kill you," she spurted at Dean and Nora as she passed them in the hallway, "Screw you! God! Oh! Jerk!"

Dean and Nora approached Cas who honestly didn't understand what was happening.

"The hell did you do," Dean fumed.

Cas shrugged his shoulders and explained, "I don't know. I just looked her in the eyes and told her it wasn't her fault that her father Gene ran off. It was because he hated his job at the post office."

Nora snorted and Dean glared hard at her.

"Oh, no, man."  
"What?"

"This whole industry runs on absent fathers. It's, it's the natural order."

While Dean and Cas assessed the situation together, Nora saw two rather large men, bouncers, coming through the doors Chastity had just left through.

"Um…guys…we should go. Come on."

The three of them made a mad dash in the opposite direction and ended u p in the back alley of the brothel.

The two of them were laughing as Dean closed the door behind himself..

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing. Whoo. It's been a long time since I've laughed that hard. It's been more than a long time. Years."

Nora, hunched over, her hands on her knees, looked up from laughing and saw the smile fade from Dean's face.

After driving back to the hospital where Raphael's vessel was, Cas told them that they can trap him with a circle made of the oil he had gotten a hold of earlier. Apparently when the oil burns, no angel can touch or pass through it, or they die. Nora become increasingly impressed with how much knowledge Cas had. I mean of course he was, he's been around literally forever, but he reminded her of one of those DIY books where you can come up with handy tricks using household items.

Dean asked him how he was going to get Raphael, which is why Cas put a ring of oil around his vessel, Donnie, and chanted something in Enochian into his ear.

"I'm here, Raphael. Come and get me, you little bastard."

Cas left the circle and stood in between the two very stunned humans.

"Just out of curiosity, what is the average customer wait time to speak to an archangel," Dean asked sarcastically.

"Be ready," he replied. lighting a match and dropping it on the oil, which burst into a ring of flames.

**At the Abandoned House**

They drove up to the house and parked the car. Dean took his hands off the wheel and sighed, "Well that's a day I'll never get back."

They all three started to walk up to the house, but Cas held his hand out and froze.  
"Wait."

Donnie was already inside the cabin, flaring with lightning in the shape of wings as the three of them walked inside, only now he was RAPHAEL. Light bulbs shattered above them. Raphael looked up, with piercing eyes just at Castiel.

Castiel," he singled out.

"Raphael," Cas echoed..

The three of them walked closer to him, but instinctively, Dean pulled Nora behind him, and she peeked around his shoulder.

"And I thought you were supposed to be impressive. All you do is black out the room," Dean mocked

"And the Eastern Seaboard," Raphael said smug.

Lightning flashed outside, and Nora jumped back, but held onto Dean's arm.

"It is a testament to my unending mercy that I do not smite you here and now."

"Or maybe you're full of crap. Maybe you're afraid God will bring Cas back to life again and smite you and your candy-ass skirt. By the way, hi, I'm Dean, this is Nora."

"I know who you are. And now, thanks to him, I know where you both are."

Nora, much like Cas, squinted her eyes and wrinkled her brow. Cas stood taller now at Raphael's threat.

"You won't kill him, or Nora. You wouldn't dare."

"But I will take him to Michael," he threatened more, and then looked over to Nora and she could swear he started to grin, "and her to Lucifer, when he finds his vessel, of course."

Dean could feel Nora start to tremble, reached over, and held her hand on his arm, trying to comfort her. He kept his cold demeanor for Raphael however.

"Well then. Sounds terrifying. It does. But, uh, hate to tell you, I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Surely you remember Zachariah giving you stomach cancer," Raphael asked.

"Yeah, that was, that was hilarious."

"Well, he doesn't have anything close to my imagination. I'm sure we can manage to do something to your little bitch over here as well."

"Yeah? I bet you didn't imagine one thing."

"What?"

"We knew you were coming, you stupid son of a bitch."

Dean lit up his lighter and dropped it where Raphael was standing and the holy oil ignited in a circle around him. He looked up at the three of them, focusing on each of them becoming increasingly angrier.

"Don't look at me, it was his idea," Dean jokingly put the blame on Cas.

"Where is he," Cas immediately got to the point, not wasting any time.

"God? Didn't you hear? He's dead, Castiel. Dead..But there's no other explanation. He's gone for good."

"You're lying," Cas was so sure of himself, but you could hear a slight tone of worry in his voice.

"Am I? Do you remember the twentieth century? Think the twenty-first is going any better? Do you think God would have let any of that happen if he were alive?"

"Oh yeah? Well then who invented the Chinese basket trick," Dean mocked.

"Careful. That's my father you're talking about, boy."

"Yeah, who would be so proud to know his sons started the frigging apocalypse. Daddy ran away and disappeared. He didn't happen to work for the post office, did he," Dean said, knowing Raphael wouldn't understand their inside joke.

"This is funny to you? You're living in a godless universe."

"And? What, you and the other kids just decided to throw an apocalypse while he was gone?"

"We're tired. We just want it to be over. We just want...paradise," Raphael explained.

"So, what, God dies and makes you the boss and you decide you can do whatever you want?"

"Yes. And whatever we want, we get," he said menacingly, and as if this guy just had special effects up his sleeve to go along with the tone of whatever he was saying, the windows all burst in, and Dean sheltered Nora from the glass underneath him.

Cas didn't move, unaffected by Raphael's "tricks".

"If God is dead, why have I returned? Who brought me back?"

"The same one who is urgently looking for Nora here."

She peered back around at Raphael who was already staring at her intensely.

"You're so quiet," he smiled.

"No," Cas said doubtfully.

"Think about it. He needs all the rebellious angels he can find. You seem to take a keen interest in Nora, which gets him closer to her. You know it adds up."

Fed up, Cas gave up trying to find answers that he wasn't going to get from him.

"Let's go," he said, his voice like gravel.

Nora scolded herself for what she did next, but she couldn't just leave. She was tired of being in the dark. She followed these men everywhere, trying to get involved in any way she could, and still had no idea, really, why she did in the first place.

"Wait," she called stepping away from Dean to stand in front of him. She inched closer to Raphael knowing that as long as she didn't get too close, he wouldn't harm her…hopefully.

"Nora," Cas tried to stop her.

Nora ignored his plea and looked straight ahead into Raphael's eyes.

"You know about…his plans for me, don't you?"

He smiled down at her.

"Nora, you're quite the attention grabber in heaven…and hell. Practically front page news."

"Quit patronizing me and get to the point!"

Dean looked at her with newfound respect at her sudden burst of confidence.

"What does he want with me?"

Raphael crossed his arms, peered at the floor like he was considering how to tell Nora the news, and looked back at her, still dripping with smugness.

"Let's just say he planted Sam in that coffee shop you met him at."

"Sam," Dean questioned.

"Different Sam," Raphael clarified. "The one, Nora so willingly fell into bed with. The one who put that…abomination…inside of you. His real name is Samyaza, though."

While Dean and Nora were still trying to figure out where they had heard that name, Cas had already figured it out, as always. He was always ten million steps ahead of them.

"No," Cas muttered.

Nora glance d over to him and saw how panicked he suddenly became.

"Who is he," she asked him.

Cas' gaze never left Raphael's as he answered, "A fallen…"

"Angel," Raphael finished, "that's right. Leader of the Watchers."

"I don't understand," Nora stated.

"You don't know the story?"

She said nothing urging him to continue, but Cas butt in to tell her instead. He abruptly started feeling more protective towards her emotionally and physically, not wanting Raphael to speak to her directly.

"Samyaza…convinced other angels, or members of the Watchers to join him in fornicating with human women."

"The end result," Raphael interrupted, "being that their offspring would be Nephilim. That's what you are carrying."

Nora never considered herself a religious nut, but she knew enough to get by, so why couldn't she place the name in her memory?

"What does that mean?"

"Half human, half angel," Cas answered, his voice low and surprisingly less intimidating than it had been before.

Nora looked down at her stomach, her mouth hanging open just slightly and she felt tears start to form in her eyes. That explained everything. Why she had found out she was pregnant so early, why her stomach was getting bigger by the minute. Her child was only half-human.

"Why," she choked.

"That's your test. Lucifer believed your body able enough to carry something so…powerful."

"Why didn't he just do it himself then? Why send Samyaza," Dean suddenly joined in.

"Well, I suppose because he has yet to find his true vessel."

"Then he failed," Nora said confident.

"Why's that," Raphael teased.

"He's a fallen angel…Samyaza, he doesn't have that kind of power anymore."

Raphael smiled at her knowing how completely naïve this little girl was. He walked as close as he could to the ring, teetering on the edge. One more step and he would die.

"Unless he made a deal with Lucifer."

Cas walked over to here and started to pull her back but she shrugged her arm out of his grip. Knowing he couldn't get her to stand down, he still stood close enough to her just in case.

"Why me though? What's so special about me? I can't be the only one on earth to bear this child."

"You and your baby have a lot more in common than you know. Hell, you Dean do too. These roles you have, if you choose to fulfill them, they're in your blood."

"What do you mean?"

"So many questions…"

"Tell me!"

"You are nephilim, Nora," he roared causing the whole room to shake, and glass to rattle on the floor below them.

"What…"

"Cruel isn't it? Life can be such a vicious circle.. Anyways, I've said too much."

"You son of a bitch," Nora sneered trying to get as close as she could to Raphael. Cas took a hold of both of her arms holding her back.

"You want to know more, you might want to ask the man himself."

Nora struggled in Cas' grip as he said into her ear, "Nora, let's go." She shoved him away from her, fixing her shirt and glared at Raphael before turning around to walk out the door, but stopped when Raphael had more to say.

"Castiel, I'm warning you. Do not leave me here. I will find you."

Maybe one day. But today, you're my little bitch."

The three of them started for the front door leaving Raphael standing in a flaming circle he couldn't escape from.

"You might want to keep a better eye on her from now on," he warned stopping them in their tracks, "When Lucifer finds her, I hear he'll do unspeakable things to her."

Nora felt a tremor slither its way up her spine, causing the hair to raise on the back of her neck and arms. She took a couple of deep breaths and walked out the front door, Dean and Cas following behind her.

**A/N: AAAHHH! It really does kill me when I know more than you guys, cause trust me there's a lot more to Nora's role in the apocalypse than just this. Plot twist for sure. So, thanks for reading! Don't get to review!**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Part 1

**Hello again! I'd like to, once again, thank everyone for the follows, favorites, and reviews! A huge thanks to Dalonega Noquisi for pointing out the minor age mistake of Nora. I decided to make her younger and must have missed that line when I went back to change it in previous chapters, so that will be fixed, and good eye! **

**Also, I apologize if my story flooded your emails, trying to fix the mistake; I was an idiot and accidentally deleted all of the chapters, so I had to re-post them. I still don't really know how to run this site quite yet. So, my apologies.**

**Lastly, just so you guys know. I'm not always going to do a rehashing of every episode. These first few were just for plot purposes. **

**This chapter needed to be split because it was getting to be too long. So here's the first part!**

Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories.

A nephilim? She wasn't even fully human, and neither was her child. She sat in the back of the Impala mulling over the past days she had spent with Dean, and looked over at him driving. He didn't even seem phased by anything that had happened hours ago with Raphael. He looked like he had maybe just had an argument with some run-of-the-mill guy, and both decided to just agree to disagree and go their separate ways. Of course, she knew that he was pretty much raised to be what he turned out to be, but she wondered when he would eventually crack, what his trigger was.

Somehow, unbelievably even to herself, she had accepted all that happened to her quite calmly. She supposed it had something to do with how she was raised as well, only her father wasn't a hunter like Dean's. He just neglected her, gave her away to her Grandmother to take care of. Her father. What a bastard. He was so mysterious to her, never gave her any explanation as to where he was at all times. Hell after her mother died, he burned all the pictures he could of her, so Nora wouldn't dwell on her passing. He told her to always be strong. "Grieve and forget," he told her countless times. Then with no warning he dropped dead himself. Her father was mysterious in life and death.

She thought about her mother and a theory edged its way into her mind begging to be released. Dean looked in his rearview mirror and saw the hard expression etched on her face.

"You okay," he asked, but she was too deep in concentration to answer him. So, he looked back to the road and then over to Cas who was practically a mirror image of Nora.

"Cas? You okay?"

Again, he was met with silence.

"Look, I'll be the first to tell you that this little crusade of yours is nuts, but I do know a little something about missing fathers."

Nora looked up to the front seat.

"What do you mean," Cas inquired.  
"I mean every time I was looking for my dad when all logic said that he was dead, but I knew in my heart he was still alive. Who cares what some ninja turtle says, Cas, what do you believe?"

Cas frowned, but was astonished, even now, after all the time he had spent with the Winchesters at the question. He couldn't get used to being asked about his feelings, emotions, and opinions.

"I believe he's out there."

"Good. Go find him," Dean encouraged.

"What about you," Cas said concerned looking first at Dean and then turning in his seat slightly to glance at Nora.

"What about me? I don't know. Honestly, I'm good. I can't believe I'm saying that, but I am, I'm really good."

"Yeah, well speak for yourself," Nora said, bitter.

For once, Dean didn't have a witty remark to throw at Nora. He understood her silence now. He imagined what she was going through must have felt the same as what Sam has gone through. You grow up completely unaware of something dark inside of you until it's revealed to you, of course under the worst of scenarios. So, Dean in the normal Winchester way, tried to reassure her that everything was going to be okay.

"Don't worry, Nora. We'll figure this out. You'll be fine."

Nora couldn't hold her theory in any longer.

"Do you think he knew?"

"Who? Knew what?"

"My father. There's no way he could've been an angel. The man's not…wasn't exactly any saint. It had to be my mother, Dean. So, do you think he knew?"

"Maybe, but there's no way we can find that out, so just stop hurting yourself over it, and let me handle things okay? We'll figure this out."

Nora couldn't stand how he seemed to just push all these problems, whether they were hers, or Sam's, or his own under the rug. Like by some miracle he would figure things out and everything would be just peachy.

"It's so easy for you, Dean! You're just a vessel! You…are all human! I'm not, and Lucifer has an amber alert on me and probably my child too. So don't give me your bullshit, "we'll figure things out, don't worry about it" speech, cause I really don't want to hear it. I'm scared out of my mind!"

"Nora…get a grip…"

"How could I be this…thing…and not even know it? I mean we all heard Raphael, he said nephilim are supposed to be incredibly powerful."

"Raphael was right. You are, but regrettably some don't ever reveal their power to themselves or others," Cas explained.

"And others…that do?"

"It usually takes a powerful emotion, most of the time extreme anger…but more commonly a nephilim's powers are revealed when he or she is…" he trailed off, his face looking worrisome.

"When we what," Nora urged.

Cas turned and looked out the passenger side window, as if he couldn't bear look at her.

"When he or she is near death," he answered.

Nora paused and considered how deeply rooted in shit she was. She'd felt extreme anger before, and nothing ever happened as a result, so that could only mean…

"Well…fuck me," she sighed.

She slumped back against the backseat and shrunk into herself, not knowing anything else to say. There was only so much for Nora to take in without spontaneously combusting. She figured it was like telling someone they had so many months left to live. You start to think of all the things in life you never got to see, or always wanted to do.

An uncomfortable silence fell in the Impala, but Dean cleared his throat and said, "Nothing will happen to you, Nora. I'll make sure of it, we'll just continue on."

"Even without your brother," Cas asked.

Dean frowned, but put on his usual game face to hide how he really felt.

Especially without my brother. I mean, I spent so much time worrying about the son of a bitch. I mean, I've had more fun with you two in the past twenty-four hours than I've had with Sam in years, and you're both not that much fun. It's funny, you know, I've been so chained to my family, but now that I'm alone, hell, I'm happy."

When Dean was met with silence, he looked over at the passenger seat to see that it was empty.

"Yeah, he left like twenty seconds ago," Nora confirmed.

Dean and Nora had been driving for quite a long time when they decided to get a hotel room for the night, and wait and see what tomorrow would bring them. They lethargically dragged their own bodies out of the car and made their way to the hotel entrance, when a man stopped Dean in the street. He was clutching a bible close to himself like it was his life source.

"Excuse me, friend, but have you taken time out to think about God's plan for you?"

Dean stopped and looked at him, rolling his eyes and answering, "too friggin' much, pal."

Dean walked past the man and made his way into the hotel, Nora smiling slightly at the man, as if apologizing for the way Dean answered him and followed Dean into the hotel.

They both walked into their hotel room complete with two full size beds, Nora immediately falling onto her back on the bed nearest the far side window. Dean turned at the huff she made when her back made impact on the squeaky bed and laughed.

"Yeah, you and me both."

Sighing, Nora stared idly at the ceiling.

"I don't know how you could ever get used to this. Not knowing where you'll be sleeping every night."

Dean walked over to his own bed and sat down on the edge, beginning to take his shoes off.

"I've done it my whole life, so I guess I've had practice."

Nora went silent, pondering what his childhood must have been like. Sure, she had done something quite similar when she was a child, and her dad would leave her in motel rooms sometimes for a couple of days, but eventually she ended up with her grandmother. She made the transition Dean never got the chance to. Knowing where you'd be sleeping every night, then becoming an adult and adopting the mundane life we all fall into; getting a job, getting your own place. Eventually her childhood became a blur in her mind. Everything was erased.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of Dean's cell phone. A panic rose in Nora's chest, and like her mind always did, she assumed the worst. Something bad happened to Sam, or Bobby, or Ellen., or Jo. That panic deflated when Dean mouthed to her it was Cas.

"We're talking about the Colt, right? I mean, as in the Colt?"

Pause.

"Well, that doesn't make any sense. I mean, why would the demons keep a gun around that, uh, kills demons?"

Dean waits squinting his eyes, and holding his free hand over his other ear, and then suddenly laughs.

"Put it on speaker phone," Nora whispers.

Dean nods and obliges, pushing the speakerphone button and sitting the phone on the nightstand between their beds. Dean continued to joke.

"You know, it's kind of funny. Talking to a messenger of God on a cell phone. It's, you know, like watching a Hell's Angel ride a moped."

Outwardly frustrated at Dean's lack of seriousness, Cas yelled, "This isn't funny, Dean. The voice says I'm almost out of minutes."

"Okay, all right. I'm—I'm telling you, Cas, the mooks have melted down the gun by now."

"Well, I hear differently. And if it's true and if you are still set on the insane task of killing the devil, this is how we do it."

Dean gave up trying to reason with the angel, and groaned, "Okay. Where do we start?"

"Where are you now?"

"Kansas City."

Dean leaned over to pick up the room key on the nightstand.

"Century Hotel, room 113."

"I'll be there immediately."

Dean stopped him before he could hang up and fly his way over to wear they were.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, come on, man. I just drove like sixteen hours straight with a very pregnant Nora, okay? We're human. And there's stuff we got to do."

"What stuff?

"Eat, for example. In this case, sleep. We just need like four hours once in a while, okay?"

"Yes," Cas agreed reluctantly, as if annoyed by their human needs.

"Okay, so, you can pop in tomorrow morning."

"Yes. I'll just—"

Dean hung up the phone before they could hear the rest of Cas' sentence.

Nora laid back on the bed and said, "Why doesn't he seem to grasp the concept that we humans have certain needs?"

"Because he's an angel, and doesn't need to refuel like we do," Dean said sarcastically knowing that was a stupid question to ask.

"I know that dipshit, I'm just saying you'd think after observing mankind for five billion years he would've known that we do."

A couple of hours had passed, Dean and Nora had both fallen asleep fast. Dean's cell phone, once again, rang and vibrated loudly next to him on the nightstand. He groaned and rolled over picking up the phone groggily.

"Damn it, Cas, I need to sleep!"

But an unexpected voice sounded on the other side.

"Dean, it's me."

Dean's eyes widened in shock slightly and he sat up on his elbow.

"Sam? It's quarter past four."

"This is important. Is Nora around? I don't want her to know."

"Yeah, she's here, but she's asleep."

"Good, go into the bathroom or something."

"Okay, but Sam, what's so imp-"

"Just do it."

Dean holds a fresh beer in his hand from the hotel fridge, turns and looks at Nora's sleeping form, wrapped tightly in the bed sheets, snoring lowly. Once he's sure she is sound asleep, he makes his way back into the bathroom and sits on the edge of the bathtub.

"So, you're his vessel, huh? Lucifer's wearing you to the prom?"

"That's what he said."

"Just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in, huh, Sammy?"

You could practically hear the disappointment etched on Sam's face. He scoffed, "So, that's it? That's your response?"

"What are you looking for?"  
"I don't know. A—a little panic? Maybe?"

"I guess I'm a little numb to the earth-shattering revelations at this point."

"What are we gonna do about it?"

"What do you want to do about it?"

Suddenly, Nora opened the bathroom door and peered in, her eyes hooded overcome by sleep, her hair askew, and sticking up in several places.

"What the hell are you doing," she asked irritated.

"It's Bobby/ He's got a job for us tomorrow."

"And he's calling you now?"

Dean shrugged his shoulders.

"Ger her out of there, Dean," Sam whispered.

"Nora is there anything you need right this minute?"

"Yeah actually, I have to pee, could you get out?"

Dean becoming irritated with her as well asked, "Can't you wait?"

Nora put both of her hands on her hips.

"I'm sorry did Lucifer Rosemary his baby straight into your uterus? No, so get out."

Dean put his hands up in surrender and stood up leaving the bathroom muttering something about _crazy hormones _and shut the door on his way out.

"Is she gone?"

"Yeah. So, what do you want?"

"I want back in, for starters."

"Sam—"

"I mean it. I am sick of being a puppet to these sons of bitches. I'm gonna hunt him down, Dean."

"Oh, so, we're back to revenge, then, are we? Yeah, 'cause that worked out so well last time."

"Not revenge. Redemption."

"So, what, you're just gonna walk back in and we're gonna be the dynamic duo again?"

"Look, Dean, I can do this. I can. I'm gonna prove it to you."

"Look, Sam—it doesn't matter—whatever we do. I mean, it turns out that you and me, we're the, uh, the fire and the oil of the Armageddon. You know, on that basis alone, we should just pick a hemisphere. Stay away from each other for good."

"Dean, it does not have to be like this. We can fight it."

"Yeah, you're right. We can. But not together. We're not stronger when we're together, Sam. I think we're weaker. Because whatever we have between us—love, family, whatever it is—they are always gonna use it against us. And with Nora tagging along with us, it just makes it that much worse And you know that. Yeah, we're better off apart. We got a better chance of dodging Lucifer and Michael and this whole damn thing, if we just go our own ways."

"Dean, don't do this."

"Bye, Sam."

Dean hung, and Nora walked out of the bathroom at the same time and looked over at his pained expression.

"You okay?"

He looked up at her, not noticing her standing there before, and put his phone aside.

"Yeah, why don't we just get back to sleep, okay?"

"Well what did Bobby want? What's the job."

Dean completely blew her off and snapped back, "I'll tell you tomorrow."

She frowned, biting her lip and walking back over to her bed, crawling under the blankets and falling quickly back into a deep sleep.

The light of morning streaming through the window woke Dean up from his restless slumber. He turned over to look at the clock on the nightstand, only to find it completely busted, unlike its appearance just a few hours prior. Shaking it off, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned, while slowly but surely getting out of the bed, but that caught him off guard as well. He was lying on nothing, but a mattress spring. He would've noticed if he wasn't so used to sleeping in cheap motels that had beds that might as well have not had mattresses to begin with.

"What the hell," he whispered to himself.

He lazily got out of bed and walked over to the window, and couldn't come to terms as to what he saw. He blinked a few times and again rubbed his eyes hoping he would either wake up, or somehow everything would look as it did when they arrived at the hotel, but his, if any, luck wasn't present today.

He turned at the sound of Nora taking in a deep breath and groaning.

"God this mattress-"

Nora didn't finish her sentence as her eyes opened and she realized what Dean had just moments ago.

"Ok, that's weird," she muttered.

"I think our mattresses are the least of our problems," Dean said still facing out the window.

Nora, struggling to lift the weight she now carried even more of, stood up, holding her lower back achingly and made her way over to Dean to investigate what he was so intrigued by. She stood next to him and nearly gasped at the sight before her.

The whole town was empty. Buildings either were in the process of decaying or had been completely decayed to the point where you couldn't even call it a building anymore. Newspaper clippings, plastic bags, Styrofoam cups, trash in general tumbled along the road and sidewalks in the calming wind.

An abandoned town was nothing though. Nora had seen towns like this, a little better looking sure, but still, somewhat run down like the town before the two of them. It was the absolute lack of people, the eerie silence, not even a bird chirping or cawing that sent a shiver up their backs.

"What the hell is going on," Nora asked in what was sure the million-dollar question in both of their minds.

One last look and Dean was ready to find out the answer. He turned and walking past her said, "Get a jacket, we're going out there."

"Uh, Dean, I know it's kind of weird, and up your alley, and all that, but do you really think that's such a great idea?"

"No, complaints. We're going. There's no way I'm leaving you here either. I don't trust you being here without me just as much as our there without me."

As soon as they were both dressed, Nora said she wouldn't leave without at least brushing her teeth, they headed outside. Nora stuck closely to Dean's side, practically melting into him. They both continued to look around the area, completely devastated. Almost every building was covered in graffiti. Nora wondered how that could be scrawled all over every building when there seemed to be no one anywhere, but she realized she spoke too soon when they both halted to a quick stop at the sound of glass smashing. Dean held his hand out hovering around Nora's stomach and they both stood silently, listening for the sound again.

"I think it came from over there," He said pointing off somewhere to the left of them towards an alleyway.

He signaled for her to stay close behind him and she obliged as they made their way over to the alley. Turning the corner, Nora smiled at the first sign of life, seeing a young child leaning over something on the ground that they couldn't quite make out. Her hair was stringy and masked her face. Dean hesitantly crept towards the girl.

"Little girl? Little girl?"

She didn't budge. They both noticed her lack of shoes and the blood that streaked her tiny feet and hands mixed with dirt.

"Are you hurt," Nora asked.

Still, she stayed silent, not looking up at them at all, and something in Nora's gut told her that something wasn't right.

"You know the not-talking thing is kind of creepy, right?"

Dean laughed , but his smile faded when the little girl looked up. Blood was dripping from her mouth, and down her chin. She had this ferocious look in her eyes, and now her stance looked less like a little girl cowering in fear, but predatory, and about to pounce. She looked between the two of them and let out the most bloodcurdling shriek as she practically leapt towards Dean attacking him with a shard of glass she had been holding. She managed to slash his arm, but she wasn't quick enough to do anymore damage. Instinct took over, and he landed one solid punch to her face. She spun around and landed on the ground with a loud thud.

"Dean, you just punched a kid," was all Nora could think to say at this odd display of events.

He shrugged his shoulders in a way that said, what else was I supposed to do. He winced at the pain in his arm and turned to look behind Nora who was still watching for any movement from the girl and when she looked back at him, she saw the panicked expression and turned to see what he was looking at. Spray painted in red bold letters was the word, "CROATOAN".

"Oh, crap," he said.

"What? What does that mean?"

Several people, their appearance much like the little girl came into view and started to corner the two of them.

"Not anything good. Nora RUN!"

Dean pushed her in the opposite direction of the small crowd of people and she began to sprint ahead of Dean who made sure he stayed close enough behind her. They dodged debris in the street, broken down cars with all of their windows smashed until the people chased them into a dead end blocked by a chain-link fence.

They turned and the people started to corner them again. Dean instinctively put his arm out shielding Nora behind him, but several soldiers arriving on tanks arrived on the other side of the fence and immediately started shooting the people.

"Get down," Dean shouted at Nora. They both dropped to the ground, Nora holding her stomach in her hands, Dean sliding his way over and hovering over her with half of his body. Suddenly, they are caught in a parade of bullets and….was that The Contours' "Do You Love Me"?

While the soldiers seem distracted by the people they are shooting, Dean made a quick decision to be out of the crossfire in fear of Nora or him being shot. He nudged her and told her to get up as sneakily as possible and move towards the other side of a building just a few feet away from them. So, they both got up, crouched , and made their way stealthily to another alley, and they continued to move as far away from the soldiers as possible.

It was dark outside. They had kept walking, hoping to bump into someone that wouldn't try to kill them, but no such luck.

"You still haven't told me what the hell that word means," Nora said out of breath.

"Do you want the long version or the short," Dean asked scoping the area.

"Well seeing as we seemed to be pressed for time…"

"Very well. Short version. Croatoan is basically a virus. Kind of like the one War brought on when we were with Rufus, only the people are more like…zombies. They'll pretty much eat you."

"Oh…lovely."

They continued to walk until they happened upon a fence, and for some reason, Dean decided to break through it. He crawled through it himself and held it open for Nora who ducked and took the hand Dean offered her. They both turned and saw a sign on the other side of the fence that read:

CROATOAN  
VIRUS  
HOT ZONE  
NO ENTRY  
BY ORDER OF ACTING REGIONAL COMMAND  
AUGUST 1, 2014  
KANSAS CITY

"August first, 2014," Dean asked bewildered.

"Maybe it's a type," Nora said with so much hope laced in her tone.

"Please, when are we ever that lucky?"

Looking around, Dean happened by a conveniently placed, conveniently fueled car and jumped into the driver's side to hotwire it. As soon as he had it up and running, they both hopped in and started driving.

"Got any service," he asked Nora who kept holding up her phone in different spots around the front of the car, and out the window.

"Nothing."

"The radio is nothing but static. That's never a good sign."

"Croatoan pandemic reaches Australia," came a third voice. Both Nora and Dean yelled at the same time, startled and looked back to see Zachariah sitting in the backseat reading from a newspaper.

"I thought I smelled your stink on this Back to the Future crap."

Zachariah, ignoring him continued to read.

"President Palin defends bombing of Houston." Certainly a buyer's market in real estate. Let's see what's happening in sports. That's right—no more sports. Congress revoked the right to group assembly. What's left of Congress, that is. Hardly a quorum, if you ask me."

"How did you find us?"

"Afraid we had to tap some unorthodox resources of late—human informants. We've been making inspirational visits to the fringier Christian groups. They've been given your image, told to keep an eye out."

A look of realization hit both Nora and Dean simultaneously.

"The Bible freak outside the hotel—he, what, dropped a dime on us?"

"Onward, Christian soldiers. By the way, it's good to see you again, Nora. I'm so happy you stuck around with this chucklehead," he smiled.

"Okay, well, good, great. You have had your jollies. Now send us back, you son of a bitch."

"Oh, you'll get back—all in good time. We want you two to marinate a bit."

"Marinate," Nora questioned.

"Three days, Dean and Nora. Three days to see where this course of action takes you both."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that your choices have consequences. This is what happens to the world if you continue to say "no" to Michael...and Nora well…that is yet to be seen. It's probably better if you two have a little look-see."

Then, not shocking to either of them, he vanished.

Dean knew exactly where to head to for answers, or maybe it was just so he could see a familiar face. He drove his car into the lot, Bobby's house, and they both walked inside, the front door, mysteriously ajar.

"Bobby? Bobby, it's me and Nora. We're coming in!"

They both looked around. The place was thoroughly trashed, and from the spider webs and dust covering nearly every surface that was visible, no one had been around in a while.

"Oh, no," Dean muttered looking down in front of him.

Bobby's wheelchair was on its side. Dean leaned forward and set it upright. Nora gasped, her hands covering her face. Bullet holes were visible and dried blood circled around them and streamed down on the back of the seat.

"Where is everybody, Bobby," Dean asked looking around the place. He sounded so pitiful and Nora walked over to him and slid her hand into his seeking to give him some sort of comfort. He jumped slightly at the contact, but didn't let go of her hand.

"What do we do," She asked him, tears started to form in her eyes.

Looking at her directly she could practically see the light bulb go off in his mind, like the light, so bright, shined out of his eyes. He walked over to a cabinet space and opened a hidden compartment pulling out a leather-bound journal, Nora recognized as Dean's father's. Dean carried that journal around like it was his very own Bible. He opened the journal and a picture fell out.. Nora leaned over, picked it up for him, and held it up for both of them to see. In the picture stood Bobby with Cas, three unidentified men, and a sign.

"Camp Chitaqua."

Without question, Dean knew exactly where this camp was and drove the two of them there. Nora held onto the photo as they walked, quietly and slowly. Dean approached the sign and signaled for her to give him the picture. He held it up in front of him and looked at the picture and the sign, comparing the two.

"This is it," he confirmed.

"Shh!" Nora pointed in front of her and they both crouched down beside a couple of bushes. Men, like the soldiers they saw before, with guns were just inside the fence, patrolling. Looking around Dean catches a glimpse of what seems to be his car and with a look and a gesture points it out to Nora. They make their way over and upon coming closer to the car, Dean sees that the Impala is smashed and completely rusted.

Oh, baby, no," he complains.

He approached the Impala for a better look at the damage, peering inside the driver's side door.

"Oh, no, baby, what did they do to you?"

"I think we have worse issues, Dean," Nora said.

Suddenly they both hear rustling of leaves and they both barely turned to look when both of them are knocked out by…Dean?

Nora's eyes slowly fluttered opened, everything around her blurred, and the pain came rushing in all at once, particularly on the back of her head. When she tried to reach to grasp the back of her head…she couldn't. She was handcuffed and sitting right next to Dean, to a ladder. He woke up just seconds after her, much more startled. He sees her next to him and immediately asks, "You okay?"

"I just want to know why I keep getting punched, and slapped, and knocked out. I'm a pregnant woman for God's sake, I can only tolerate so much," she groaned wincing at the pain again.

They both become alarmed at the sight of…another Dean…sitting across the room re-loading and cleaning a gun.

"What the hell," the Dean next to Nora asked shocked.

"I should be asking that question, don't you think? In fact, why don't you give me one good reason why I shouldn't gank you both right here and now," the future Dean asked.

"Because you'd only be hurting yourself," Dean joked.

"Very funny."

"Okay, either I'm crazy or you hit me really hard," Nora said, completely still and overtaken by the shock of seeing two Deans.

"Look, man—we're no shape shifters or demons or anything, okay?"

"Yeah, I know. I did the drill while you were out. Silver, salt, holy water—nothing. But you know what was funny? Was that you had every hidden lock pick, box cutter, and switchblade that I carry. Now, you want to explain that? Oh, and the, uh, resemblance, while you're at it," the future Dean asked.

"Zachariah," Nora said.

Future Dean stood up at the name mentioned.

"Come again?"

We're from the tail end of 2009. Zach plucked us from our beds and threw us five years into the future."

Future Dean, bulked up and seemingly colder than the Dean she was sitting next to stiffened.

"Where is he? I want to talk to him," he asked seriously.

"We don't know."

"Oh, you don't know," he scoffed.

"No, we don't know. Look, we just want to get back to our own friggin' year, okay?"

Future Dean wiped his mouth and looked between the two of them.

"Okay. If you're me, then tell me something only I would know."

Dean looked down thinking and then a smile crept onto his face.

"Rhonda Hurley," he began, " We were, uh, nineteen. She made us try on her panties. They were pink. And satiny. And you know what? We kind of liked it."

"Oh God," Nora sighed embarrassed for herself and Dean alike.

Future Dean paused for a second and gave a look that meant he believed him…self…

"Touché. So, what, Zach zapped you two up here to see how bad it gets?"

"I guess. Croatoan virus, right? That's their endgame?"

"It's efficient, it's incurable, and it's scary as hell. Turns people into monsters. Started hitting the major cities about two years ago. World really went in the crapper after that."

"What about Sam," Dean asked hopeful to see him again .Future Dean went still, and Nora didn't miss the pained look on his face that immediately went stone cold.

"Heavyweight showdown in Detroit. From what I understand, Sam didn't make it."

"You weren't with him?"

"No. No, me and Sam, we haven't talked in—hell, five years."

Nora looked down, saddened at the thought that in this universe, Sam was what she assumed to be dead, but she couldn't imagine what Dean must have been feeling like.

"We never tried to find him," he scolded.

"We had other people to worry about," Future Dean shot back, sneaking a sad glance at Nora before he looked away. He picked up his gun and put it in the holster hanging on his hip.

"Where you going," Nora asked.

"I got to run an errand."

"Whoa. You're just gonna leave us here?

"Yes. I got a camp full of twitchy trauma survivors out there with an apocalypse hanging over their head. The last thing they need to see is a version of The Parent Trap and..."he trailed off looking at Nora again, and the look he gave her made her slightly uncomfortable. It was very…longing almost, "So, yeah, you two stay locked down."

Dean gave up and said, "Okay. All right. Fine. But you don't have to cuff us, man. Oh, come on. You don't trust yourself and a innocent pregnant woman?"

He looked at the two of them, his eyebrows raised, "No. Absolutely not," and with that he left them handcuffed to a ladder in cabin.

"Dick," Dean complained and then his face scrunched not sure if he had just really said that about himself or…either way it was giving him and Nora a headache.

"Well this is just…fantastic," Nora said closing her eyes and putting her head back against the ladder. Again, instinct drove Dean to look for something that he could use to pick the locks on their handcuffs. He looked around him and spotted a nail on the floorboard and reached over with his one free hand and began prying it out of the floorboard. After some time and many complaints from Nora that he was never going to get it out, he managed to and was able to first set himself free and then her as well. Nora rubbed her wrist with her hand to ease the pain from the handcuff and Dean peered out a window observing the area around them, which was clear of any people. He didn't want to risk anything with Nora around, however. He looked around the cabin for anything that would conceal her and saw a hoodie hanging on the back of a chair.

"Here, put this on," he said shoving it in her arms.

"What, why?"

"He didn't say you were still around in this year…so I just want to be sure. Put the hood on and don't speak until we're clear got it?"

Nora nodded and put the jacket on, hood up to conceal her face.

Nora walked closely behind Dean as they walked through the camp and he glanced around, not really knowing what he was looking for, mostly just a way out, but alas, his luck, or lack thereof brought him to a familiar face.

"Hey, Dean. You got a second," Nora heard a man with short, curly, reddish/brownish hair and a beard ask. She ducked behind Dean.

No—yes. Uh, I—I guess. Hi, Chuck," Dean answered. So, at least Dean knew him, Nora thought.

"Hi. So, uh, listen, we're pretty good on canned goods for now, but we're down to next to nothing on perishables and—and hygiene supplies. People are not gonna be happy about this. So, what do you think we should do?"

Dean hesitated.

"I—I don't know. Maybe, uh, share? You know, like at a kibbutz."

Then Chuck suddenly realized something and asked, "Wait a minute. aren't you supposed to be out on a mission right now? And who is this?"

Chuck looked around Dean's shoulder to try and catch a glimpse of Nora, but Dean kept covering her.

This is…this is…No..Noel! Yes, just a kid, in trouble, taking her to punish her and all that…you know…kids these days," Dean chuckled, and Chuck looked at him mysteriously. Nora understood Chuck's confusion. From the looks of the Dean Chuck knew, he wasn't used to seeing him so chipper.

"And, absolutely I am supposed to be on a mission. And I will be."

"Uh-oh," Chuck said looking past Dean.

A woman came up behind Dean and tried to slug him, but he dodged her.

"Whoa! Jeez! Easy, lady!"

As if women suddenly frightened Dean, he jumped Chuck leaving Nora uncovered, who upon realizing this followed his lead and ducked behind Chuck as well.

"Risa," Chuck greeted.

"Risa," Dean questioned.

"You spent the night in Jane's cabin last night, didn't you," Risa accused Dean.

"Uh, what? I—I don't—did I," Dean asked looking at Chuck for confirmation. Chuck nodded.

"I thought we had a 'connection'," Risa questioned using air quotes.

"Well, I'm sure that we do," he said not really knowing what to say.

"Yeah?"

"Hi, Risa," Chuck greeted again, but she only shot him down with a screw you and blasted away from them. Dean sighed.

"Oh, jeez. I'm getting busted for stuff I haven't even done yet."

"What," Chuck asked.

"Uh, never mind. Hey, Chuck, is...Cas still here?"

Chuck sort of mockingly smiled and said, "Yeah. I don't think Cas is going anywhere." Chuck pointed out the direction of where Cas was, another cabin similar to the one they both woke up in and they made their way over to it. Hesitantly, they both walked inside, and Nora slid the hood off her head figuring her appearance wouldn't make any impact on Cas.

It was his appearance that shocked them more. After walking through beads hanging in the doorframe they saw Cas sitting in a circle with several women listening to him intently. He had grown a five-o-clock shadow, his hair messy, but more than usual and longer, and he had ditched his usual suit and trench coat for a loose blue shirt and tan pants, and no shoes. They listened to him speak to the women and it was like they were both experiencing the weirdest thing they had ever seen in their lives.

"So, in this way. We're each a fragment of total perception—just, uh, one compartment in that dragonfly eye of group mind. Now, the key to this total, shared perception—it's, um, it's surprisingly physical."

Cas looked up and spotted Dean, but his eyes widened at the sight of Nora. He couldn't keep his gaze away from her, but finally looked back to the women surrounding him.

"Oh. Excuse me, ladies. I think I need to confer with our fearless leader for a minute. Why not go get washed up for the orgy?"

Words could not describe the rush of complete and utter confusion Dean and Nora experienced at that moment, so let's just say…if Nora and Dean had both been taking a sip of water at the exact moment Cas had just said what he said, they would've both simultaneously spit out their drink.

The women got up and started to file out of the cabin, while Cas watched them all go, smiling and telling them how beautiful they all were.

He stood and stretched his back grunting turning around and walking over to a wooden table just across from where Nora and Dean stood. Then, as if remembering what he had just seen Cas turned back around and rushed over towards Nora and wrapped both of his arms tightly around her…hugging her…?

"Whoa…okay," she said going rigid. He smelled strongly of pot and…was that lavender? Either way, it was a smell that she never would've assumed the Cas she knew would smell like. After a few uncomfortable moments later, Cas let her go and stood back looking at her in disbelief. He held onto her arms and said, "I'm so glad you came back."

"Came back," she questioned, but Cas didn't get to speak because Dean was still two steps behind them still trying to figure out what was wrong with Cas.

"What are you, a hippie," he asked.

Cas looked away from Nora and sighed, letting go of her arms and started pacing the cabin. He stretched his arms out and said, "I thought you'd gotten over trying to label me."

"Cas, we got to talk," Dean said getting strictly down to business. Cas was taken back as if just experiencing déjà vu.

"Whoa. Strange."

"What?"

"You...are not you. Not now you, anyway…so they must mean, you are still…you," he said looking miserably back to Nora.

"No! Yeah. Yes, exactly."

"What year are you from?"

"2009," Nora answered.

"Who did this to you? Is it Zachariah?"

"Yes."

"Interesting," Cas pondered.

"Oh, yeah, it's friggin' fascinating. Now. Why don't you strap on your angel wings and fly us back to our page on the calendar," Dean suggested. Cas sort of chuckled and mockingly smiled saying, "I wish I could just, uh, strap on my wings, but I'm sorry, no dice." Nora noticed his eyes then, slightly glazed over, the red veins more prominent.

"What, are you stoned," Nora asked.

"Uh, generally, yeah," Cas smiled.

Nora felt a deep sadness overtake her mind looking at him. On the outside, he looked happy, mostly due to the weed, but there was a reason for all of this, and she saw something heartbreaking just in the way he looked, the way he spoke, everything.

"What happened to you," She inquired jadedly. Everything in the look he gave her confirmed her beliefs about him. He looked at her like he hadn't seen her in years, and was deeply troubled by it.

"Life," he sighed.

A car and a jeep arrived outside of Cas' cabin. Future Dean and some soldiers climbed out as Future Dean grabbed two beers and tossed one of them to a soldier. They both opened the beers and drank, but then Future Dean drew his gun and pointed it at the soldier.

"Hey. Hey! Watch out," he tried to warn the soldier, but Future Dean shot the soldier, and the others standing around looked more startled at the fact that two Deans were standing before them.

"Damn it," Future Dean huffed as he looked around at the camp civilian's shocked faces. He turned to address them and the other soldiers.

"I'm not gonna lie to you. Me and him, and Nora here—It's a pretty messed-up situation we got going. But believe me, when you need to know something, you will know it. Until then, we all have work to do."

Future Dean started to walk away and the other soldiers and Cas followed hid, so Dean and Nora decided to tag along as well. They walked to another cabin and as soon as they arrived, Future Dean shoved Dean inside, while another soldier shoved Nora inside as well, and the door was shut behind them.

"What the hell was that," Future Dean yelled at the two of them.

"What the hell was that? You just shot a guy in cold blood," Nora shouted.

"We were in an open quarantine zone. Got ambushed by some Croats on the way out."

Dean's expression needed no words. It begged for an explanation.

"Croats. Croatoans. One of them infected Yeager," he explained referring to the man he shot.

"How do you know?"

"'Cause after a few years of this, I know. I started seeing symptoms about a half an hour ago. Wasn't gonna be long before he flipped. I didn't see the point in troubling a good man with bad news."

Dean became increasingly livid and he got up in..his own face. God, Nora really didn't know how to get a grip on this yet.

'Troubling a good man'? You just blew him away in front of your own people. Don't you think that freaked them out a little bit?"

It's 2014. Plugging some Croat, it's called commonplace. Trading words with my friggin' clone—that might have freaked them out a little."

"All right, look—"

No, you look. This isn't your time. It's mine. You don't make the decisions. I do. So, when I say stay in, you stay in."

"All right, man. I'm sorry. Look, I—I'm not trying to mess you—me—us up here."

"I know."

"Then let us go," Nora pleaded. "We just want to go home…or some shitty motel."

Future Dean poured two glasses of alcohol and handed one to Dean.

"It's just been a really wacky weekend."

"Tell me about it, and honestly at this point, you're free to go. Although you won't find any angels so good luck getting back to your time."

Both Dean's simultaneously gulped back their alcohol.

"What was the mission, anyway," Dean asked.

Future Dean pulled out a gun that Nora didn't recognize.

"The Colt?"

"The Colt."

"Where was it?"

"Everywhere. They've been moving it around. Took me five years, but...I finally got it. And tonight—tonight, I'm gonna kill the devil."

Nora's expression dropped and she gulped back the fear rising in her throat.

Day turned into night quickly and the soldiers, Cas, Future Dean, Nora, Dean and now Chuck and Risa joined them in the cabin. Nora was seated next to Cas who sat sloppily with two feet on the table.

"So, that's it? That's the Colt," Risa asked.

"If anything can kill Lucifer, this is it."

"Great. Have we got anything that can find Lucifer," Future Dean noticed her completely for lack of a better term, bitchy tone towards him and asked, "Are you okay?"

Dean cut in and explained, "Oh, we were in, uh, Jane's cabin last night. And, apparently, we and...Risa have a connection."

Future Dean gave Dean a death glare.

"You want to shut up?"

Dean raised his hands in surrender and looked over at Nora making a face that said, future him was touchy.

"We don't have to find Lucifer. We know where he is. The demon that we caught last week, he was one of the big guy's entourage. He knew."

"So, a demon tells you where Satan's gonna be, and you just believe it," Risa scoffed.

"Oh, trust me, he wasn't lying."

"And you know this how?"

Cas swooped in knowing what Dean was capable of, but not wanting to risk having Dean admit it so bluntly.

"Our fearless leader, I'm afraid, is all too well schooled in the art of getting to the truth."

However, his attempt to cover it up was blown by Dean, who picked up what he meant immediately.

"Torture? Oh, so, we're—we're torturing again. No, that's—that's good. Classy."

Cas laughs and Future Dean glares at him.

"What? I like past you."

"Lucifer is here. Now. I know the block and I know the building."

"Oh, good—it's right in the middle of a hot zone," Cas mocked.

"Crawling with Croats, yeah. You saying my plan is reckless?"

Cas sat up, taking his feet off the table and leaning forward.

Are you saying we, uh, walk in straight up the driveway, past all the demons and the Croats, and we shoot the devil?"

"Yes," Future Dean said confidently.

"Okay, if you don't like, uh, 'reckless', I could use 'insouciant', maybe."

Future Dean become annoyed and rolled his eyes asking Cas, "Are you coming?"

"Of course," he sighed, "But why is he? And we can't have Nora coming either. I mean, he's you five years ago. If something happens to him, you're gone, right?"

"And if he tries to kill Nora he'll only be killing what he was after for so many years. She'll be fine, and he's coming."

Nora absorbed this newfound information and decided to speak up about it.

"So…I'm alive?"

Cas and Future Dean both looked at her and like a mirror reflection of each other, they had the same look they had been giving her all day.

"He took me didn't he," she asked knowing full well what the answer was, but needing to hear someone validate it. They all went silent instead until Cas sighed getting up and saying, "I'll get the grunts moving."

"We're loaded and on the road by midnight," Future Dean ordered.

Risa immediately left, followed by the soldiers and then Cas started to get up, but turned and looked at Nora.

"Can we talk for a second," he asked her, "Outside?"

Nora nodded and he helped her stand up looking at her stomach and smiling slightly. She followed him as they stepped out of the cabin and walked around to the side, concealed in a dome of darkness away from the streetlights they had set up.

"What is it," Nora asked.

Cas hesitated and she could suddenly see his eyes start to water. He rubbed the threatening tears from his eyes and said, "I don't want to throw everything at you at once, but you will be seeing the devil tonight, and you will see you…and well, to be Captain Obvious, you won't really like what you see."

"Am I…have I become…"

"Evil? No, I mean I don't think so. You just, you gave up…and well, I guess you'll see."

Nora looked at him, really looked at him. His whole façade was to cover up something that was deeply painful for him, and if she had the money to bet, she'd put it on something to do with her. And then, Nora saw a side of Cas she never thought she'd ever see. I mean all of this was pretty new, but Cas started to cry and he wiped his tears away with the back of his hand. He stepped closer to her and hesitantly placed his hand on the side of her face, cradling it gently.

"I just wish we had more time with you," he choked.

He looked down ashamed, knowing this was a side of him he knew she had never seen. In that moment, though, Nora only saw a broken shell of a man and did the only thing she could think of. She lifted his head up and looked at him right in the eyes, and wrapped her arms around him in a comforting embrace.

"I'm here now…it's okay," she cooed.

Dean and Future Dean walked out of the cabin and Cas separated himself from Nora rapidly. Dean looked at Nora and said, "Come on, we have to go and get you a gun."

She nodded and looked back at Cas who smiled and turned to gather up the rest of the men and women for the mission.

When everything and everyone was packed, armed, and ready to go Dean and Nora followed Cas and they followed behind Future Dean's car.

After a few minutes had passed, it sort of felt like old times only with a very stoned Cas. Dean and Nora watched Cas take a pill bottle out of the glove compartment and guzzle back probably more than was healthy.

"Let me see those," Dean said taking the pills from Cas.

"You want some," he asked Dean.

"Amphetamines?"

It's the perfect antidote to that absinthe," Cas smiled looking first at Dean and then Nora who sat in-between them.

"Mmm. Don't get me wrong, Cas. I, uh. I'm happy that the stick is out of your ass, but—what's going on—w-with the drugs and the orgies and the love-guru crap?"

Cas just laughed at the description he received of himself.

"What's so funny?"

"Dean, I'm not an angel anymore."

"What," Dean and Nora asked concurrently.

"Yeah, I went mortal."

"What do you mean? How," Nora questioned.

Cas just shrug his shoulders.

"I think it had something to do with the other angels leaving. But when they bailed, my mojo just kind of— psshhew!—drained away. And now, you know, I'm practically human. I mean, guys, I'm all but useless. Last year, broke my foot, laid up for two months."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"So, you're human. Well, welcome to the club."

"Thanks. Except I used to belong to a much better club. And now I'm powerless. I'm hapless, I'm hopeless. I mean, why the hell not bury myself in women and decadence, right? It's the end, baby. That's what decadence is for. Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out? But then that's, that's just how I roll."

Nora and Dean looked uncomfortably at each other and then back out the window in front of them.

"Oh and just a heads up," Cas continued, "You guys should probably know what happened between the three of us. Figured if you knew now maybe you could do something about it when, or if, you get back to 2009."

"What do you mean, what happened," Dean asked.

Cas hesitated looking at them both and then back at the road.

"Well, actually Nora it's sort of the reason you ended up alongside Lucifer."

"Okay, come on spill," Nora urged.

He shifted in his seat and his hands tightened around the steering wheel.

"About a year after this all started happening. You two…you got pretty close. I mean you guys spent so much time together with Sam gone and all, and then…you got really close."

Dean and Nora looked at him not quite understanding what he was getting at. He rolled his eyes and finally bluntly said, "You two were together, okay! Like as in…at it like rabbits practically 24/7."

In that moment, Dean and Nora looked at each other, their eyes wide, mouths open, and suddenly they were trying to scoot away as far as they could from each other.

"Oh God, are you serious," Nora asked, feeling vomit begin to rise in her throat. Her palms started to sweat and she could feel the blood rush to her cheeks. She seemed to be the only one embarrassed because when she looked back at Dean he was looking like he was actually considering the possibility of getting with her. She slapped his arm and glared at him and the smug smile that started to form was erased completely.

"Well, how does that explain me going to Lucifer, besides the fact that it sickens me so much?"

Cas got progressively more embarrassed.

"That's kind of where I come in. Nora, you got drunk one night. I guess you and Dean had a fight, you were…a mess. You came to my cabin, as always, I was completely stoned, and well we…"

"No…"

"We were both completely out of this world wasted. I mean first it was that one time, you regretted it the next morning…and then it became another time…and another…and another…"

"Oh… my sweet Lord, please stop," Dean now sounded.

"And then," Cas continued, "Dean found out, and he was furious. You should've seen him, I mean..you…anyways, Nora…let's just say that we got a lot closer than you had with Dean, but…" He trailed off as if the next few words he couldn't come to say out loud.

"I left," Nora asked.

Cas smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes and tried to laugh off what happened.

"I guess I wasn't enough reason to stay behind."

**Oh the dramz. So this was just part one, part two will be coming very soon. So get ready to get some more insight on what will happen in 2014, if it still happens, with Nora and the role she plays with Lucifer. Some big things are revealed in the next part.**

**Please review and thanks again for the follows and reviews. They mean a lot. :]**


	7. Chapter 6: Part 2

Chapter 6: Part Two.

**Hello! Thanks again for the reviews/favorites/follows! I'm so glad and thankful for them. So, this is part two, and it is a lot shorter than part 1, mostly because I felt the mood was different in this one than in the last. I hope you enjoy!**

Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories.

Nora, Dean, Future Dean, and Cas walked ahead of the pack of soldiers, guns ready, and scanned the area around them. Nora couldn't make herself forget what Cas had told her and Dean about their futures. She was pretty much stuck with the two of them back in 2009, and she's supposed to be…involved…with the two of them sometime in the next couple of years. Her mind felt like it had been just shut down, like every thought became tangled in a knot. She wished she could find herself in this universe and scold her for what she got herself into. Not to mention how much of a skank she seemed to become. _For Christ's sake, you had a baby, why would you put yourself through that again? _The baby. Nora was just about to ask Cas what had become of her baby, but Future Dean stopped them all in front of a broken down building with a sign that read,

JACKSON COUNTY SANITARIUM

"There. Second-floor window. We go in there," he commanded.

"You sure about this," Risa said nervously.

They'll never see us coming. Trust me. Now, weapons check. We're on the move in five."

Dean turned to Nora, and saw the melancholy look etched on her face. She held her gun tightly in her hands, knuckles white, and she wouldn't look up at anything but the ground. Testing his ground, he stepped a little closer to her and put two hands gently on her shoulders, which prompted her to look up. Her eyes met his reassuring gaze and she felt him squeeze her shoulders.

"You okay?"

"Honestly? No," she muttered, a tear started to fall. Dean frowned and pulled her into his arms, and Cas looked over at the two of them desolately.

"You stay close to me, no matter what, you got it?"

Nora nodded as he beckoned her to follow him over to Future Dean. She looked back at Cas as he started to walk away from them, not knowing this would be the last time she would see this completely different…man.

"Hey, uh, me. Can I talk to you for a sec," Dean asked Future Dean.

Future Dean pulled him over to the side and nodded for him to ask.

"Tell me what's going on."

"What?"

"I know you. You're lying to these people and to me."

"Is that so?"

It was comical watching the two of them, their shoulders pushed back. The y looked like, one more negative attitude, and they'd be at each other's throats in seconds. It really took, "you are your own worst enemy" to the next level.

"Yeah. See, I know your lying expressions. I've seen them in the mirror. Now, there's something you're not telling us."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, really? Well, we don't seem to be the only member of your posse with some questions, so, uh, maybe we'll just take our doubts over to them."

Dean tapped Nora's arm, a gesture saying to follow him towards the rest of the group, but Future Dean stopped them.

"Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait."

"What?"

"Take a look around you, man. This place should be white-hot with Croats. Where are they?"

They both took a second to look around and suddenly their atmosphere shifted in the way the wind suddenly calmed, the noise became deafeningly quiet.

"They cleared a path for us. Which means that this is—"

"A trap. Exactly."

"Well, then we can't go through the front."

"Oh, we're not. They are. They're the decoys. You two and me, we're going in through the back."

Shock nearly crippled Nora while only anger rose in Dean.

"You mean you're gonna feed your friends into a meat grinder? Cas, too? You want to use their deaths as a diversion," Nora practically whispered. Future Dean couldn't look her in the eyes.

Dean almost laughed at the absurdness of their predicament. His tone laced with disappointment in himself was clear when he said, "Oh, man, something is broken in you. You're making decisions that I would never make. I wouldn't sacrifice my friends."

Future Dean decided to aim for the jugular, always putting blame on himself much like Dean from 2009.

"You're right. You wouldn't. It's one of the main reasons we're in this mess, actually."

"These people count on you. They trust you."

"They trust me to kill the devil and to save the world and that's exactly what I'm gonna do," Future Dean hissed.

Dean got right into Future Dean's face and said, "No. Not like this, you're not. I'm not gonna let you."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah."

And with no thoughts at all, or seconds to spare, Future Dean slugged Dean in the face, knocking him out cold. He fell to the ground and Nora immediately went to his aid, getting down on her knees beside him, cradling his head in her lap.

"What is wrong with you," she begged Future Dean. He looked at her unnervingly and she could see he was trying to think of something to say to her, anything, but nothing came to mind. What she didn't know was how much Future Dean wanted to tell her he loved her, that seeing her, the way she was now, was too hard for him. He wanted to tell her everything that had happened between the two of them, what would happen to her, but he couldn't. It seemed too cruel. So instead, his demeanor shifted, he was cut off, cold, and he clutched his gun and commanded that she stay there with Dean, and demanded her not to follow him. Just like that, he was gone.

Nora sat there with Dean and wracked her brain for an idea to pop into her mind on what the right thing to do was. This Future Dean was too confident that he would be able to save the world all by himself. That was something the Dean lying with her had a problem with too, only she could tell, at the mention of Sam's name, how sad he would become. He needed Sam more than he would willingly admit. That's what Future Dean needed as well. He became their "fearless leader" because that's what he always did. He was always forced into that role. He needed help, and even though it was completely stupid, and irresponsible, and probably not Future Dean's best choice of tag along sidekick, she had to do what she thought was right.

"The hell with it," she said getting up and leaving Dean on the ground behind her, following Future Dean.

She heard gunfire coming from inside the building, heard the groans and cries of friends, some new, some old, dying, knowing that Cas was amongst them. She swallows her sadness and continues to run. Thunder started to crash, and lightening flashed and she halted at the sight in front of her. Frozen. A man, head to toe, in white, his back facing her towered over Future Dean whose eyes landed on Nora, a single tear ran down his cheek and the man in white shifted his weight and Nora jumped when she could audibly hear his neck crack. She couldn't help the small gasp that leapt from her chest, and immediately regretted it when the man turned around, but her heart nearly fell into her stomach when she saw whom the man really was. He had a smile, too sinister on his familiar face.

"Sam," she said in disbelief. His smile seemed to widen when he saw Nora.

"Only on the outside," he said, too cheerily. "It's Lucifer now. Aren't you a surprise?"

Nora could feel her whole body trembling, and suddenly the thunder and lightning flashed again and he was no longer in front of her. Her eyes widened in fear frantically looking around when his voice sounded behind her. She whirled around and took a few steps back.

"You've come a long way to see this, haven't you?"

"Well, go ahead. Kill me," she cried, her voice cracking, the lump in her throat feeling stuck. She knew she had no chance of defeating him without Dean.

"Kill you? I could never kill you, Nora." He then tilted his head, as if he was considering something. "Well, I could, but I'd only be killing the other you, that's just around the corner over there." He tilted his head to the right, and Nora chanced a peak at herself from the future, but when she did, she only caught a glimpse of a figure in a white silk dress retreating behind a tree. Lucifer sighed.

"I'm sorry. You're a little shy nowadays."

Nora turned her gaze back on him, and her lips formed a thin, straight line, tears broke through the barrier and slid down her cheeks, and she knew he could physically see her shaking now.

"I'm sorry. It must be painful, speaking to me in this—shape. But it had to Sam. It had to be."

He reached for shoulder, but she cowered and moved away, so he put his hand back down to his side.

"You don't have to be afraid of me, Nora. What do you think I'm going to do?"

Nora swallowed down the lump lodged in her throat, her voice cracked, "I don't know, maybe…deep-fry the planet?"

Lucifer examined a rose from a rose bush next to them and he smiles at her, hesitantly reaching over and putting the rose behind her ear. She cowered again, but figured moving away from him too often might set him off, so she allowed him to do it.

"There's the Nora I know. I miss the way you used to be. You used to have so much fight in you. Now you're so…obedient. Nora listen to me. Why would I want to destroy this stunning thing? Beautiful in a trillion different ways. The last perfect handiwork of God."

Nora swallowed again and didn't answer him.

"You ever hear the story of how I fell from grace?"

"Too many times."

He ignored her sarcasm, as weak as she sounded and continued.

"You know why God cast me down? Because I loved him. More than anything. And then God created..." He trailed off, looking her in the eyes and smirking, "You. The little...hairless apes. And then he asked all of us to bow down before you—to love you, more than him. And I said, "Father, I can't." I said, "These human beings are flawed, murderous." And for that, God had Michael cast me into hell. Now, tell me, does the punishment fit the crime? Especially, when I was right? Look at what six billion of you have done to this thing, and how many of you blame me for it."

"We're flawed? We're murderous? Then what does that make you? I know I haven't been in this…supernatural world for very long, but I see what you…things…do to him, so I know exactly what that makes you," she said, her tone suddenly becoming more confident.

He tilted his head in fascination and stepped closer to her, inches from her.

"What am I?"

"You're the same thing, only bigger. The only difference between them and you is the size of your ego."

He smiled at her, reached down, and took her hand holding the gun, in his. He squeezed her hand hard enough that the gun fell from her grip, and then held her hand in his gently. With his other hand he placed two fingers under her chin and lifted it so he could look at her fully.

"I like you, Nora. I get what Castiel saw in you…what he saw in you," He said looking down at Future Dean's dead body. Goodbye. We'll meet again soon," and he turned and started to walk away.

"Wait! You better do it now."

Lucifer turned back to face her.

"Pardon."

"Kill me now."

He sighed and smiled, "Nora, I already said I have no intentions of hurting you. Why are you so desperate?"

Nora started to cry again, her shoulders hunched over and she put both hands around her swollen stomach. What she was about to tell him was something she needed to say out loud, and not just to him, but so she could hear it herself.

"I'm weak. Dean he…everyone keeps me in the dark. They always have. My father did too and…Dean he…he's so set on finding a way to kill you, but he can't do it alone. Trust me when I say that he will find a way to kill you, and he won't stop, b-but he just keeps pushing me away. I'm afraid that he'll be killed, and now I know it's all my fault. If I hadn't come along, if I hadn't gotten close to him like we supposedly do…So please, just kill me now."

He had a look of what she could see looked like sympathy as he walked back over to her. He laid his hands over hers on her stomach and said, in complete calmness, "I know Dean won't. I know he won't say yes to Michael, either. And I know he won't kill Sam, but I'm still not going to kill you, Nora. No matter how hard you try to resist, you will always end up here, with me. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up—here. I win. So, I win. And you should know this as well…"

"Know what?"

"Our kids are just in love with you," he smiled.

A feeling of fear laced with shock and disbelief fell into the pit of her stomach.

"Our kids?"

"We have ten so far. All boys. The one inside of you now, a girl, but I'm afraid she doesn't make it."

"Why are you doing this to me," she pleaded.

He brought her into an uncomfortable hug, something she never thought in a million years she'd ever get to say to someone. I hugged the devil.

"It's in your blood, Nora. You were chosen."

"And my child now? What was the point?"

"Well, let's say I had to be sure. Samyaza was just a puppet, bless his soul."

"What was the bargain," she asked, already knowing that Lucifer had planned her life for her long before she probably even knew.

"Well, as you know, I had yet to find my vessel when Samyaza found you. However, we had been speaking…a lot about you."

"What?"

"You do know the story don't you?"

"What story?"

He sighed and held her out in front of him at arm's length to really look at her, and then let go of her and started to pace.

"Samyaza, many years ago, fell in...lust… with a mortal woman, named Istahar. You see he was a part of the Watchers and like all Watchers he promised to reveal to her the "secrets of heaven" if she would give herself to him sexually. She was smarter than that though. She told him that the only way she would give herself to him was if in turn he would remove his wings and let her try them on, that was the price. After some convincing he gave in and she placed the wings on her back and ascended into heaven."

Nora had finally made the connection.

"Samyaza…I told him he had to promise to talk to his boss about getting me a job…and then and only then would I would…"

"Exactly. Granted your story was much more modern, and you clearly weren't as smart as Istahar. You fell right into the trap."

"What did you promise Samyaza for my…virginity?"

"Well for starters his wings back, and that he could be reunited with Istahar."

Nora nodded and looked down at the ground feeling almost ashamed for so many people that she had let down, past and future.

"And he's dead?"

"Killed him the night of, so you don't have to worry about finding him anymore. Now really, I must be on my way."

"You're wrong, you know. I'm in charge of my future, not you."

He smiled at her like someone would at a naïve little child and said, "See you in five years, Nora."

Thunder and lightning struck again and suddenly Lucifer was gone. She turned around and standing behind her was Zachariah who didn't give her a second to speak or breathe before placing two fingers on her forehead.

She found herself back in the hotel room and seemingly back in the year 2009. She finally was able to release the winded breath in response to what she had just witnessed, everything Lucifer told her about what would happen to her, what her role was. Everyone she loved would be dead, all of her friends, even her little girl. She rubbed her stomach and watched as tears splattered on the shirt around her swollen belly.

Dean suddenly appeared in the room and ran over to her, wrapping his arms around her. She broke down, collapsing in his arms and sobbed.

"I know…shh…I know. It's okay. You're gonna be okay," he cooed.

"Sam…he's…he said yes…he…"

Another voice interrupted the two of them.

"Yes, I already filled Dean in on the Sam/Lucifer slash fiction," Zachariah said annoyed.

They both looked up at him and Nora stood up straighter and glared at him.

"You son of a bitch…"

"Enough. Nora, enough. You saw it, right? You saw what happens. You both are the only people who can prove the devil wrong. Dean just needs to say yes."

"How do I know that this whole thing isn't one of your tricks? Huh? Some angel hocus-pocus," Dean insisted.

"The time for tricks is over. Give yourself to Michael. Say yes and we can strike. Before Lucifer gets to Sam. Before billions die…before little Nora here opens her legs for him willingly."

Dean became enraged and turned away so he wouldn't release his anger on Zachariah. Finally, once he had calmed down some, he turned back around and walked back over to stand beside Nora.

"Nah."

The hopeful look on Zachariah's face vanished.

"'Nah'? You telling me you haven't learned your lesson?"

"Oh, we've learned a lesson, all right. Just not the one you wanted to teach."

Zachariah became infuriated and he advanced on them both.

"Well, I'll just have to teach it again! Because I got you now, boy, and I'm never letting you—"

One minute they both were standing in the hotel room, the next they had been zapped to another location, on an empty roadside in the middle of nowhere. Confused they both looked at each other and then around them and saw Cas standing there, the real one, the one they had grown so accustomed to with his business suit and tan trench coat. Both of them sighed simultaneously.

"That's pretty nice timing, Cas," Dean smiled.

"We had an appointment," Cas smirked back.

Dean chuckled and put a hand on Cas' shoulder.

"Don't ever change," he said.

Cas looked at him strangely and then over at Nora and saw how puffy and red her eyes were. He frowned, but she started to smile at Dean's words and said, "Please, for the love of God, don't ever change."

"How did Zachariah find you," he asked.

"Long story. Let's just stay away from Jehovah's Witnesses from now on, okay," Dean requested. He walked away and pulled out his cell phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Something I should have done in the first place."

They drove through the rest of the night, at around noon parked underneath a bridge, and waited.

Dean waited by the Impala along with Nora when another car pulled up, and Sam stepped out of the car. Nora couldn't help the shiver than ran up her spine at the sight of him. It would take some time before she could get the image of him as Lucifer out of her mind.

"Sam," Dean greeted.

Dean pulled out Ruby's knife, which she had learned would kill any demon, and Sam looked at it nervously. Dean held it out to Sam, handle first.

"If you're serious and you want back in...you should hang on to this. I'm sure you're rusty."

Sam took the knife, but he couldn't seem to look them both in the eyes.

"Look, man, I'm sorry. I don't know. I'm...whatever I need to be. But I was, uh—wrong," Dean struggled to apologize.

"What made you change your mind?"

Dean hesitated and looked at Nora sorrowfully, ashamed that he knew what she saw, and that he wasn't there with her.

"Long story. The point is...maybe we are each other's Achilles heel. Maybe they'll find a way to use us against each other, I don't know. I just know we're all we've got. More than that. We keep each other human."

"Thank you. Really. Thank you. I won't let you down."

Nora started to feel anger towards the two of them when he said that. Sam finally looked over at her and started to speak, but she interrupted him.

"Why didn't you tell me? Either of you?"

"Tell you what," Sam asked.

"You're Lucifer's vessel. Don't you think that I would've wanted to…hell…needed to know that!?"

Sam looked down reluctant.

"I'm sorry, I made Dean promise not to tell you, which I'm glad to hear he decided against, but I couldn't okay?"

"Couldn't tell me? Why?"

"Because you…!"

Nora jumped back, startled when his voice raised and he advanced towards her. He saw how skittish she was when he got out of the car and certainly saw how she reacted to him now.

"You're afraid of me," he said. "You don't need to be afraid of…me."

Nora felt the familiar cold shiver run down her spine at his last words, the same thing Lucifer had told her just hours earlier.

She felt the tears begin to spill and shook her head, unable to speak. She turned away from them both and got into the back of the Impala, closing the door loudly behind her. Sam sighed and looked back up at Dean.

"So, what do we do now?"

"We make our own future," Dean said.

"Guess we have no choice."

**Poor Nora. Girl can't catch a break! Anyways, hope you enjoyed it! Next chapter will be all original material. It might be a couple of days before it's posted!**


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

**Hello again! Thanks for the reviews/follows/favorites! Nothing much to say, except for here's the new chapter and another character is introduced a little further into the chapter, so I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories.**

Bobby, Sam and Dean heard Nora vomiting as they stood outside the panic room Bobby had built in his basement. A room designed to keep out pretty much anything supernatural. Neither of them said a thing for five minutes. They just stood away from each other with their heads down.

"She's been in there for three days straight, ever since you brought her here," Bobby sighed.

Dean walked over to a chair sitting next to the room and sat down sighing loudly.

"Has she been eating? Sleeping? Anything?"

"Very little, but eating and sleeping none-the-less."

Sam, his arms crossed, leaned against the wall.

"Guys what are we going to do? We can't just leave her in there."

"Sam, she obviously saw something or someone told her something that's breaking her down. Now she won't tell me anything, and I'm not an expert on women, but I was married to one. I think it's best we leave her be for a little while."

"Bobby's right," Dean said, "We can't ask her to come back on the road with us. Not yet. Besides, she's safer in there."

Sam nodded and started to walk over to the door leaning against it instead. He could hear her whimpering and choking back a sob, even through the heavy iron door.

"So what now," Bobby asked.

"Actually, we found a job," Sam said, "Well, Dean found a job. Not sure it's really worth it when we've got much bigger issues at the moment."

"I'm sure the apocalypse will still be there when we get back," Dean mocked.

"Where's it at?"

"Canton, Ohio."

Bobby sighed standing up straighter. He looked back at the iron door and his shoulders slumped, he put his hands in his front pockets and started for the stairs. When Dean started to follow, Sam stopped him.

"Wait, Dean."

Dean turned and looked at Sam.

"What happened with her, and tell me the truth."

Dean exhaled and took a seat in the chair next to the panic room and looked up at Sam's tall frame.

"Zachariah, he…sent us back to the future. 2014."

"Why?"

"To show us what our futures would be…if we chose the wrong path."

Sam ran his hand through his hair and started to pace slowly.

"What did you see?"

Dean clasped his hands together and rested his elbows on his knees leaning forward. He hesitated, not knowing if telling Sam what they saw was a good idea. Telling someone their future wasn't always a good thing from what they'd heard. Was it worth the trouble to really tell him everything? Did he need to know everything? Only what was important.

"I was knocked out…by future me no less…and Nora decided to try and take on the devil herself. She's so…reckless you know," he chuckled. "She saw you, only you weren't you."

Sam froze in his spot facing away from Dean. Dean couldn't see his face, but if he could, he would've seen the panic and realization that came over him.

"It was Lucifer."

"Yeah."

"So, I said yes."

Dean stayed silent.

"Has she said anything? Did she tell you what he said to her…or…did to her?"

Dean nodded his head swiftly.

"She's not talking, like Bobby said."

"Maybe we should forget the case and stay with her."

Dean stood up and began to walk away from the panic room, passed Sam.

"No, you heard Bobby. When she's ready, she'll talk. Meanwhile we've got a job to do."

"Dean, she's afraid of me," Sam snapped.

Dean stopped at the bottom of the staircase, and turned to face Sam.

"Exactly, Sammy. That's why we have to leave her alone for a while. Hell maybe she'll talk to Bobby while we're gone. He'll take care of her."

Without another word, Dean left Sam alone for just a moment. Sam turned and looked miserably at the panic room door. Nora had stopped crying, the room was eerily quiet, but he straightened up and followed Dean back upstairs and into the Impala heading for Ohio.

Nora couldn't stop shivering, and she wasn't even cold. She couldn't feel anything. Even her baby hadn't moved in the three days she sat in Bobby's panic room. At least, she didn't think it did. She was so broken and disconnected, someone could come into the room right then and she probably wouldn't notice. She sat on the bed in the middle of the room staring at the opposite wall from the door. Trays of food that Bobby had left for her contained sandwiches starting to mold. One bite was taken out of each of them. Half-full glasses of water lined the desks and tables around the circular room that started to make her dizzy.

Maybe if she stayed here long enough, she would go crazy. If she were a nutcase, maybe Lucifer wouldn't want her. She'd become a rotten egg, a lost cause. She could stay away from the boys, away from Cas. She wouldn't start to desire them like she was supposed to. She was changing her future, and if it made her mad, so be it. Her life was already insane as it was.

_No matter how hard you try to resist, you will always end up here, with me._

_ We have ten so far. All boys. The one inside of you now, a girl, but I'm afraid she doesn't make it._

Maybe she was already crazy. She couldn't get his voice out of her head. Couldn't tell if it even was a voice or if he was here with her. It pained her to know that her whole life was just a set up. She wasn't meant to be a major reporter like she had dreamed of being. She had a bigger, much harder role to play on Earth. Most people think God gives them these roles, tells them what their purpose on Earth is, or by some miracle something happens and they figure out their role on their own. Well if that's the case, God sure had a funny sense of humor.

Nora looked up at the ceiling and just when she thought she had no tears left to cry, one tear streamed down the left side of her face. She held back a sob and swallowed.

"God…," her voice cracked. "I know…I know I haven't…in a long time b-but…please. If you are out there somewhere…or up in Heaven…"

She trailed off, almost giving up. How did she get this way? She used to be much stronger. Used to not need the guidance of God to help her, but only her own confident, righteous mind and intuition. Whatever she was now, it wasn't her. Nora was gone.

"I need help," she whined choking back a sob. "What do I do?"

Silence. That's all she was ever met with nowadays. Complete and still silence. Always left in the dark by ones she thought she could trust. She didn't know what to expect except for this. Raphael was probably right. The ones with power usually give up at some point. Why would God be any different? He let bad things happen to good people. Why should she be an exception? Therefore, she gave up and continued to cry.

What would her father think of her, sitting here, a broken shell of what she used to be? All of his sad excuse for parenting, trying to toughen her up at an early age, gone to waste. She used to blame him for a lot of things. Especially now that she knew what she was, knew what was going to happen to her, but now…she didn't know whether to blame him. If her theory was right, if her mom was an angel. She wanted nothing in life more than to find her. She's supposed to be dead, but she could be an angel and someone brought Cas back, so why not her mother. Why would her mother bring this on to her daughter, to her father? Surely, she knew what would happen to her, to her daughter. Maybe that was the point. For all she knew, her mother could've been a part of this plan the whole time.

Nora finally stopped crying and looked around the room as if by some miracle she would find the answers to all her theories, questions, anything, written on the wall. Then she felt her baby kick. Her stomach had grown even more. Judging by pictures she had looked up on the internet and the symptoms she was experiencing, she had to be at least thirty-one weeks pregnant. In a normal pregnancy, that was just beginning to be eight months pregnant. That baby would be coming very soon. When she felt it kick, she felt just for a moment, relief, and then a dark thought or feeling crossed her mind. She felt disappointed. In some sick twisted corner of her mind, she had hoped that the baby, her little girl wouldn't make it, just as Lucifer said. Her child was supposed to be an abomination according to everyone else. However, this is what he wanted. Her little girl was supposed to die, maybe in the womb, maybe after she was born or somewhere down the line, but she knew she had to fight to keep her baby alive.

**Two hours later.**

Bobby stood at the top of the basement stairs afraid to talk to the wounded girl downstairs. He thought about calling Dean, thinking since he was the one with her when it happened, when Zachariah bounced them to the future, that he should be the one to come back and talk to her, but decided against it. Neither of them were very good at the heart-to-heart thing, that was usually Sam's division, but seeing as how she wasn't too sweet on Sam at the moment, he plucked up the courage to attempt to talk to her instead.

He walked slowly down each step and advanced on the iron door stopping in front of it and holding his hand up in mid-air. His fingers formed a fist, loosened with hesitation, and then came back together again and knocked twice, lightly on the door.

"Nora? Can I come in?"

He was met with a few moments of silence.

"It's okay. I'll come check on you later," he said sadly, as he started to walk away.

He was about halfway up the stairs when he heard her tiny, fragile voice through the open slit of the iron door. He looked back and saw her eyes, puffy, and red, dark circles underneath peering over at him.

"Wait…you can come in now."

He nodded as she opened the door and walked back over to the bed to sit down. He walked in slowly and testing his boundaries asked, "May I sit?"

He gestured at the spot next to her on the bed and she nodded her approval, so he walked over and sat next to her, holding his hands together uncomfortable.

"You okay?"

Silence.

"Stupid question, right."

Nora tucked a stringy strand of brown hair behind her ear.

"I know it's been rough for you, but you shouldn't be alone."

"Doesn't matter, really. I felt safe in here."

"True, and I don't blame you, but you do have people that care for you, you know. You didn't have to suffer this alone. This place is great for hiding out, but Sam is living proof that being in here too long messes with your head."

He didn't miss the way she flinched slightly at the mention of Sam's name, but didn't make note of anything.

"I'm sorry I stormed down her," she apologized.

" We've all done it. We all hide. We all had reasons for it too. So you wanna tell me what's going on?"

For the first time in the three days she had been here, he saw a small smile crinkle her eyes.

"You're kidding? You want to share feelings? You?"

"I didn't say I would be doing the sharing. Sorry, but this conversation might be a little one-sided."

It's nothing, Bobby. I just…needed some time to myself for a change instead of being stuck with those morons all day."

She tried to play it off as a joke. She thought Bobby, not being the caring and sharing type would ask her if she was okay, offer her a sandwich, and be done. She wasn't expecting him to actually want her to do the caring and sharing. Bobby had the same realization.

"Don't lie to me, Nora. Anytime we talk about anything supernatural…or even Sam's name… you practically shrink into yourself. It's like you're allergic to talking about anything that hits too close to home. You can pretend that everything is just peachy, but I see the way you just laugh it off like it's nothing. Trust me I know the feeling, and I know the expression. You smile and turn away when we mention anything about the baby. Please, I can see something eating away at you, even as we speak."

"What do you think, Bobby? Everything is wrong with me. Of course, I'm going freak out a little when you talk about ghosts, and demons, and all of that shit because up until a few months ago I didn't even know they existed! And now it turns out that Lucifer wants me and Sam is his vessel! How am I supposed to react? You've dealt with this your entire life!"

"Nora, now come on..you know you can't just…"

"No! I mean it. _Everything _is wrong with me. I know you say that your father wasn't really there for you, but at least he didn't look at you like you were a murderer. He blamed me for my mother dying any chance he could get, and I didn't do a thing, but now I'm leaving with the fear and the guilt of knowing that maybe it was my fault because of who I am."

"Nora, I'm…"

"I barely remember what she looks like. My father forbid me of ever seeing a picture of her after she died, said I didn't deserve to see her. I grew up feeling guilty about everything. I didn't want to tell you guys any of this because I'm ashamed and embarrassed. I'm 21 years old and about to become a mother myself, and I don't know the first thing about being a mom. And then I'm expected to give birth to a baby that will have its life threatened constantly? What if something happens to me? I can't let my child go through what I did. "

Bobby felt at a loss for words. What do you even begin to say to a confession like that? He knew something about abusive fathers. Nora's might not have ever laid a finger on her like his father did to him, but he knew a lot of people with father's that were emotionally abusive and that could damage a person just as much. He looked at this girl and grabbed her hand, begging for her in that small gesture to look at him, and she did.

"Your child will never have to. She may not ever know who her real father is, but I promise you, all of us, Sam, Dean, maybe even Cas, and me will always be there for your kid. I know this life can get…terrifying, but at the end of the day, it always comes down to knowing that at least you aren't alone in this. I once told Dean that family doesn't just end with blood. You'll never be alone as long as you have us standing by your side, and we will always be there for you. Don't ever forget that. And your little girl will live. I'll make damn sure she does."

Nora nodded, still sobbing and then she looked up at him and wrapped her arms around him in a desperate hug. When she pulled away she kind of smiled and confessed, "I know this sounds crazy, but I've actually been debating whether or not I'm more terrified that I'm constantly being chased and threatened by the devil, or becoming a mom. "

He laughed at her words and nodded his understanding.

"You know, everything I've told you about my dad is true. He was abusive to my mother and I, but mother, she always tried to stay strong for me. She had the heart that you have. I like to believe that certain gift are given to people, and even though you are terrified of becoming a mother because you grew up without one, doesn't mean you won't know how to be one. It may seem like we're taking care of you, but you're the one who rushes to us when we get back from a hunt to make sure we aren't beat up too bad. I mean look at you, you're eight months pregnant and you're always putting our needs in front of yours first. You're going to be a great mom, Nora. "

She swallowed the lump in her throat and he wrapped one arm around her meek shoulders.

"God, where were you the night I got pregnant?"

"Thankfully, not within the room or surrounding area."

She chuckled and teased, "Shut up."

Nora looked up and wiped the tears from her face with the back her hand.

"Thanks Bobby, I know you don't like do stuff like this."

"You're right, but I'm not nearly as strong as you are. I could never do what you just did here. The minute I let my guard down, that's when someone gets hurt, it seems. Caring too much is my weakness…hell it's those boy's biggest weakness too."

"It doesn't have to be. If you want, I can return the favor. I can always be there for you guys too. "

"Thanks, Nora, but like I said. You always are even when you don't know."

"I know I haven't known you guys long, but you've felt like family more than my own, and I just wanted you to know that I care about you…all of you so much…You've done more for me than my father ever did."

Bobby grinned and squeezed her shoulder, his way of telling her he cared about her back.

"So you coming up now?"

Nora looked around the room and back at Bobby.

"In a little bit. I still need just an hour maybe."

He nodded and left her alone, but left the iron door open for her, and she lay back on the bed and rolled to her side, tucking her chin under and holding onto her stomach looking at it lovingly for the first time.

"Hi baby girl. I've heard that babies can hear their mommy's talking, so I hope you can hear me. I mean you're half angel, so you've got to have supersonic hearing by now right?"

She hesitated, choosing her words carefully for some reason like it mattered, really mattered what her baby's opinion of her was.

"I know you don't really know what is going to happen when you're born, and you won't understand what is happening, or maybe you do, I don't know yet, but I promise you, I will do everything in my power to protect you."

Cas' hunt for God had taken a turn for the worst. A part of him desperately, achingly hoped that Raphael was wrong. That God was up in Heaven or walking the Earth. That he cared, but Raphael, unfortunately to Cas, may have made a valid point. Maybe Lucifer did bring him back. Cas did start to get too close to her and Dean. Lucifer would want someone close to her. Gives him a better advantage in capturing her. Perhaps Lucifer knew more about her future with Cas. Perhaps he knew Cas was getting close…maybe too close. He might try to use that closeness against them, against her.

He was somewhere in Van Nuys, California about to call upon the angels for help in finding God when a woman appeared before him. She was serene, beautiful. He knew immediately based on her stance, that she wasn't human. She stood before him, with a messy bob haircut, and piercing light blue eyes. Her skin was fair and seemed to glow in the California sun. Her features were familiar to him, very much like Nora's, except for the eyes.

"Hello Castiel," she said her voice deeper than most women, but still a beautiful tone.

Cas hovered his hand over the angel blade in the sleeve of his coat. He had been around on earth long enough to know that nobody could be trusted.

She glanced at his hand hovering the blade and smirked.

"I can promise you, you won't be needing that."

His hand didn't leave the blade.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Istahar."

Of course. He had heard the name before. He knew about her. Everyone had heard of her in heaven. She was the queen of heaven. She was awarded by God for denying and escaping the sins Samyaza proposed to her. She took his wings and ascended into heaven, but eventually she had left heaven finding no purpose of being there. She thought she was powerless.

"What are you doing here?"

"You have something of mine," she began, "well, not so much "have" as you do _know_ something of mine."

Cas stood up straighter with his hand still hovering the blade. He didn't like the tone of voice she had taken. He couldn't think of anything that could possibly be hers within his possession. Of course knowing her history, she probably just wanted wings.

"I have nothing of yours."

She grinned and started to advance toward him to which he took one step back.

"There's a girl. You've grown…quite fond of her…so I've heard."

He didn't know if he should mention Nora. He hadn't known any other girl that he could say he was closer to. He also knew he wasn't going to trust Istahar, thus not wanting to put Nora in any sort of danger whatsoever.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes you do Castiel. Her name is Nora."

If he could feel any level higher of human emotion than he could possibly muster from his vessel, Jimmy, his heart would've dropped at the mention of Nora's name.

"What do you want with her?"

He could swear the look that appeared on Istahar's face was that of love and care. He could practically hear her thinking of Nora. She smiled showing a perfect row of white teeth.

"She's my daughter, Castiel."

"That's impossible. You're supposed to be dead."

"I suppose I was…dead. I can tell you truthfully that I wish I had been. Being in hell wasn't exactly ideal."

"You were in hell?"

"Of course. I sinned. I slept with a human. Her father. I created her. They call her an abomination, and now she has mirrored my actions. This is why I need to find her."

Cas absorbed this newfound information. His hand loosened on his grip of the angel blade, but he hadn't 100% trusted her. It was always a red flag to angels when one said they had been to hell. The last thing they needed was another Lucifer on their hands. Moreover, this woman happened to have a connection to Nora who was wanted by Lucifer.

"How did you get out? Of hell?"

"It wasn't easy. I tried to climb out many times. It seems my cunning personality only worked when I was mortal. Demons are trickier. Honestly, I don't remember how I got out. One minute I was being tortured by demons, the next I woke up…back in this vessel."

"No one just wakes up out of hell."

"Dean sure did."

"That's different. I got him out of hell."

She grinned and inched closer to him.

"Then maybe someone else _gripped me tight and raised me from perdition._"

Istahar knew far too much about him and the people closest to him. His hand gripped the angel blade tighter than before.

"Why have you come back? What do you want with Nora?"

She stopped in her place, standing a foot away from him.

"Perhaps I should show you."

"Show me what?"

She reached down and grabbed his hand holding it gently in hers. Suddenly flashes, images, started to flood his mind. Even though they hadn't moved, as if in a dream they were standing in a cabin and Cas because entirely confused at the sight before him. He saw himself, barely recognizable sitting in the cabin drinking copious amounts of alcohol. His hair was longer and messier; he had a beard, and loose clothing and a look of complete misery drowning his usual stern expression. By this other Cas' general lack of knowledge that the two of them were standing in the same room, he figured he must not be able to see them.

"What is this," he asked angry.

"This is you. You just found out Nora ran off and went to Lucifer."

He looked at himself again, connecting the dots. This other version of him was in pain…because of her. He saw his face clearer now and read his expression. He recognized the look because he had seen it so many times on Dean, Sam, and Nora's faces. It was the wallowing despair of someone who lost someone they loved. He became nervous and uncomfortable now looking at this other him.

"This isn't real."

"It's very real. You loved my daughter very much."

"Why are you showing me this?"

She ignored him and suddenly the image distorted and they arrived in another cabin, only this time it wasn't him occupying the space. He saw Dean and Nora. She no longer had the protruding stomach he recognized. She was skinny again and judging by the looks of things, Dean was quite fond of her body. She was straddled Dean's lap, Dean sitting in a wooden chair, and they embraced each other wholly. Cas had observed humankind for a millennia and still something as simple as the sight before him baffled him. He became uncomfortable watching them anyways, but now more than ever as he realized what was happening between them was sexual.

Dean started to pull her arms back and off his neck and they stopped kissing.

"Come on, we've got work to do," he smiled.

Nora pouted her kip and whined softly, "Why? All we do is work. Can't we just enjoy one day off?"

He moved urging her to get off of him, and Cas saw the disappointed look mold her features as she stood up and away from Dean.

"We don't have time, Nora, you know that."

"Why are you like that? You used to be so…gentle…and caring…all you care about anymore is work and fighting."

Dean continued packing up and bag, rolling his eyes at her, and moved across the room gathering a knife and a gun.

"Are you even listening to me?"

He turned around quickly and yelled, "Do you think Lucifer is taking a day off, Nora?"

She jumped back, startled at his outburst, but got right into his face."

"I don't care what the hell he's doing! He will try and kill everyone of us, and maybe it will be today, or maybe it will be tomorrow, but we have to at least spend some time together, happy, because for all I know…either of us could be dead tomorrow."

"Yeah? Well that's the kind of thinking that got your little girl killed," he said his tone cold, knowing full and well that he threw that out harshly, purposefully to hurt her.

It worked. Nora stood frozen, her nostrils flared, and tears began to build up in her eyes, and her hands rounded into fists, her knuckles white.

"How dare you," she whispered.

Cas could see the look in Dean's eyes that he felt terrible, horrified that he said what he had said, but he kept going. Maybe it was out of anger, or maybe it was to prove a point, but Cas felt like intervening, if he could, and protecting Nora from Dean's emotional abuse.

"You know it's true, Nora. That son of a bitch killed your daughter, and you want to take a siesta while he is out there planning on ridding the world of everyone, anyone you know and care about?"

She turned around, unable to look at Dean, letting her tears fall where only Cas and Istahar could see them.

"You're reckless. You always have been."

Nora wiped the tears from her eyes and coldly told Dean to get out, and finally he obliged.

Cas watched Nora as she slowly made her way over to the bed in the corner of the room and curled up into a ball, but not before grabbing a bottle of whiskey off the table and drinking away her sorrow. Cas wanted to walk over and comfort her somehow, but he didn't know how, and couldn't. He started to edge closer to her, but the scene in front of him diminished and they were back in California.

"I don't understand," he said.

"What you just saw…is the reason she ran to Lucifer."

"Because of Dean," he asked in disbelief. There was no way a fight like that had caused her to do something so…for lack of a better word…stupid.

"She fell in love with both of you. That same night she crept into your cabin, she was drunk, much like yourself, and you slept with her. She grew very fond of you both, but you were much more caring and loving than Dean. Dean in the future becomes…distant…cold. She liked you for this reason…loved you."

Cas couldn't imagine a world where someone would love him. He was just a soldier of God, using the devout vessel of a man with a family.

"So, then why did she end up with Lucifer?"

The smile faded from Istahar's face and she said, "She felt wrong being with you. You were human, but she always thought of you as _her _angel. It reminded her too much of Samyaza, even though the two of you are so different. I guess in a way, being with Dean shaped her personality into something different. Suddenly, she became cold like him. You see…you became so much happier around her. You loved my daughter so much that you thought you should have a family. When you told her you wanted a baby…she just…flipped. It brought back painful memories you see. You said it was okay if she didn't want to, but she shut you out. She started to feel alone…out of touch…nothing could break her from this isolation, and she grew tired of resisting. Therefore, she went to Lucifer without saying goodbye. You just weren't reason enough for her to stay."

Cas became deeply troubled hearing what was to happen to them later on down the road.

"You speak of this like it has already happened," he stated.

Istahar walked forward, her brows furrowed, concerned.

"And it will, if you don't stop it."

"What do I do?"

"You can never let emotions come between the three of you. If you do, her child will die."

"And if I don't?"

"Lucifer will be defeated."

He considered this for a moment, and looked her up and down, sizing her up.

"And what's your involvement?"

She smirked and looked down at herself, her arms out to her sides.

"This vessel is weak from what it had endured. She is my one true vessel. With her consent, I will join forces with Michael, and together we will send Lucifer back to hell."

An hour was all Nora needed before she walked back upstairs and into Bobby's living room where he, Sam, and Dean were waiting. They all perked up seeing her walk into the room, and Dean was the first to walk over to her, but stopped, unsure of how close to get to her. He wasn't sure how comfortable she was. So, he froze in place and instead asked her if she was all right.

Nora looked between the three of them and nodded. She was going to risk what she figured would be their response to her proposal, but it was a risk worth taking. She was tired of being alone.

Sam could see how troubled she suddenly looked. Recognizing the expression of someone over thinking something to the point that they might combust.

"What's on your mind," he asked.

She broke from her thoughts and entered reality again.

"You're going to tell me everything. I'm tired of being in the dark. Tell me everything you know about everything. Teach me how to fight…and let me help take down Lucifer."


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

**Hey guys! Sorry for the wait. I've been a little busy with school, but all is well now. So here's the next chapter. I know I say this every time, but really thank you for those of you who review, and also for the follows/favorites. They really mean a lot. Hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories.**

Nora was laying on her back in yet another cheap hotel room in Nebraska, flipping through the pages of John Winchester's journal. When she told the brother's she wanted to know everything about everything, she wasn't expecting that literally everything you hear about in stories as a child or conspiracy theories you read online or see TV shows about, actually existed. Literally, anything, you could possibly think of; John had written pages about them; how to find them, and how to kill them. She was currently reading about something called a Rugaru, when Sam and Dean walked briskly into the room. Dean was…carrying a huge slab of ham?

"What the fuck is that for," she asked, her brows furrowed.

"We're testing a theory," Dean said seriously sitting the ham in the center of the small table.

Confused, but curious, Nora struggled to lift herself out of the bed. Sam noticed and rushed over to her, grabbing onto her arm. Nora, still anxious by Sam's presence loosened his grip from her arm.

"I've got it, Sam," she said, trying as hard as she could to not sound mean, but he didn't seem to buy it. He sighed and let go, but still lingered near her making sure she wouldn't fall.

Nora walked over to Dean who now sported a pair of goggles and gloves. She noticed a joy buzzer sitting near the ham and feeling nostalgic, she reached to pick it up grinning, but Dean immediately seized her opportunity to do so.

"Whoa! Don't…touch that!"

Nora chuckled and put both of her hands up in the air, surrendering.

"It's not like they're going to electrocute me, Dean."

Dean rolled his eyes and he looked at the joy buzzer for a moment before turning to Sam.

"You ready?"

"Hit it, Mr. Wizard," Sam mocked, but held another pair of goggles up to his eyes, while handing Nora a pair as well. Dean hesitated, holding the joy buzzer over the ham, but then pressed it against it. Nora jumped back, shocked when electricity crackled. Well, that wasn't what she expected. Steam rose from the ham, and soon enough the ham blackened, so Dean removed the joy buzzer. Simultaneously, they all removed their goggled, mouths open, brows furrowed.

"Huh," they said in unison.

"That'll do, pig," Dean gawks.

Nora walked over closer to the table, as if getting closer to the ham would help at all explain what just happened in front of her.

"What the hell? That crap isn't supposed to work," She complained.

"Yeah the thing doesn't even have batteries, either," Dean showed her.

Sam came over, keeping his distance, but standing near Nora by the table, testing his boundaries. When she didn't make a move or give him a look, he continued with their investigation.

"So...so, what? Are—are we looking at cursed objects?"

"Sounds good," Dean, agreed, pulling out a knife to cut himself a piece of ham.

"Maybe there's a powerful witch in town."

Dean, stuffing his face with ham asked, "Is there any link between the, uh, the joy buzzer and the itching powder?"

"Uh, one was made in China, the other Mexico, but they were both bought from the same store," Sam answered. He looked over at Dean and made a disgusted look that Nora mirrored, while Dean continued to devour the ham.

"Hmm," he moaned, offering a piece of ham to both of them. They both shook their heads and Dean shrugged his shoulders continuing to eat.

"Well, we should check out the magic shop, so Nora are you going to be alright here by yourself," Sam asked.

"Aren't I always? I've read this journal at least 3 times now. What's one more time?"

Sam sighed and a light bulb turned on in his head. Nora watched him walk outside and she paced over to the window to see him opening the trunk of the Impala. He closed the trunk and Nora watched him carry a full plastic bag into the room.

"What's in the bag," she asked and was handed the bag. She peered inside and saw at least sixty paperback books.

"I don't understand. You want me to read?"

"Take a look at the back cover," Dean smiled.

She took one book out of the bag and peered first at the front cover. It read Supernatural and had a picture of two very masculine, romance novel looking men standing beside a…Chevy Impala. She looked up at the brothers who were watching her intently and then turned her attention back to book, turning it over. They watched her eyes scan the back cover; watched her expression go from confused, amused, and then shocked.

"These books are about you…"

"Yeah, remember Chuck from our little back to the future trip," Dean asked her.

Nora nodded, starting to dig through the bag to look at the other books.

"Well those books were written by him. He's a prophet of the Lord, and those books will soon be known as the Winchester Gospel."

Nora halted her actions, dropping the bag on the bed beside her and stared at the two of them, jaw dropped slightly.

"So, everything in these books really happened? Am I in them?"

"Yes and no. They stopped being published after I went to hell."

Nora sighed and her reaction to the news stimulated not only her mind, but body as well. She felt herself sinking down, sitting on the bed

"So, while we're gone feel free to dive right into those books. Might be beneficial."

"I don't know. It seems a little like an invasion of privacy."

"Well they were published for the whole nation, hell maybe even the world to see, so we'll cut you some slack."

Dean grabbed his jacket and walked out of the room before Sam who peered at her nervously.

"Just be safe okay? Don't open the door for anyone…and if there's any…baby stuff…call us."

"Okay," she said, not looking at him.

Sam closed the door behind him and walked silently to the passenger side of the car. He noticed Dean hadn't gotten into the car, but was just standing there, his arms resting on the roof of the car, staring at Sam.

"What?"

"What's with you two? You barely talk to each other and when you do, she gives you one-word answers."

Sam's shoulders slumped and he pressed his fingers to his forehead as if rubbing away a headache.

"What do you think, Dean? She's still afraid of me. I don't know how to make her trust me."

"You could try talking to her, and I mean really talking to her. You're good at that."

"Yeah, I don't think she's up for that."

"You don't know that, unless you try. Maybe it's because I'm constantly with the two of you. You guys need alone time," Dean winked.

"Dean…"

"Not that kind of alone time perv," Dean smiled.

"Yeah, well let's just figure this out before we go all Dr. Phil on the poor girl."

**The next day**

"Really? Lies children believe are coming true," Nora asked Dean who was sitting at the table eating the leftover ham. He moaned a 'yes' and continued to eat when the door opened and in walked Sam holding a map.

"Dude, seriously—still with the ham?"

Talking with his mouth full, Dean answered, "We don't have a fridge."

Sam shook his head and walked over placing the map on the table in front of Dean and Nora.

"Well, I found something."

Dean stood up for a better view while Sam pointed to a red X on the map for every incident that happened while they were there.

"Um, tooth fairy attack was here, Pop Rocks and Coke was here, then you've got itching powder, face freeze, and joy buzzer—all located within a two-mile radius."

"So, we got a blast zone of weird, and inside, fantasy becomes reality."

"Looks like."

Sam and Dean remained quiet staring at the map and Nora concentrated on figuring out what was so significant about where the X's were placed. She had been at this job with them long enough to realize that she needed to start thinking like them, learning where to point out the weird, see the signs, and recognize what she was working with so when she noticed that X's seemed to surround a certain focal point on the map, she didn't hesitate to point it out.

"And what is being surrounded by the incidents?"

The brothers both looked up at her and smiled at one another when she wasn't looking, a moment of pride between the two of them.

"Four acres of farmland...and a house," Sam answered.

Suddenly, Dean looked nervous.

"Our motel isn't in that circle, by any chance?"

"Yeah. Why?"

Dean hesitated, and then held up his right hand. His palm was covered in hair. Instantaneously, Sam and Nora closed their eyes and scoffed backing away from Dean.

"Ugh, dude…"

"That's not what I think it is, is it," Nora asked disgusted.

"I got bored. That nurse at the hospital was hot," he grinned.

"Oh my God, Dean! While I was here? Really," Nora shouted, but Dean only shrugged his shoulders innocently.

"You were in the bathroom."

"You know you can go blind from that, too," Sam said.

"Give me five minutes. We'll go check out that house."

Dean started to walk away, but Sam stopped him and nodded for him to go out of earshot of Nora.

"Actually, maybe you could take this one. I thought about what you said. I'm going to stay with Nora."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, if you need me just call. I'll talk to her; maybe show her how to use a gun."

Dean glanced over at Nora who was hovering over the table examining the map still. He nodded and walked around Sam and over to Nora.

"So, Sam's going to stay with you. Like I said, give me five minutes and then I'll leave you two to do some more training…or whatever."

He watched Nora start to protest, but he gave her a look that said to just deal with it and don't complain. She slumped her shoulders and nodded, so Dean smiled and walked into the bathroom.

"Hey, do not use my razor," Sam yelled at him, and they both heard a muffled snicker behind the bathroom door.

Five minutes later, Dean came out of the bathroom, in his FBI suit, and saluted them both before leaving them in an awkward and very uncomfortable silence. Both of them stood in opposite sides of the room, Nora picking at her nails, Sam rubbing his hands together, but it was him that broke the silence, as always.

"So, I thought maybe we could go over the…parts of a gun. I figure it's about time you learn how to use one."

Nora's attention snapped back to reality and she shook her head of the nervousness she felt being alone with him. At some point she knew that he knew she felt uncomfortable around him, and she had to admit, she felt bad that she acted that way still. Had it not been his outer shell she had seen in 2014, of course, things would be different, but her mind wouldn't allow her to see Sam differently, to actually see him, as Sam.

"Yeah. Okay."

He smiled and walked over to his bag, taking out his gun and sitting it at the table. He invited her to sit down across from him. She walked over to sit just as he was taking the gun apart and laying out the pieces in front of her.

"Okay, so the first thing you should know is that this is a 9mm handgun," he smiled.

She grinned and nodded a simple, "Okay, good to know."

"Um…the barrel here, and the slide right here…they recoil together until the barrel is unlocked from the slide."

"Okay," she agreed…somewhat.

He noticed her confused tone and sighed.

"Maybe it's better if…for now…I just show you what goes where and you repeat what I do. No terminology lesson. Sound good?"

"Yes," she sighed and chuckled.

She watched him as he took each part of the gun and put it back together again with expertise. When he was done, he told her he had turned the safety on and slid the gun over to her.

"Okay dismember the gun."

Nora let out a quick sigh and sat up straighter stretching her fingers reaching for the gun. She stared at it for a moment and then paused.

"I…have no idea where to even start."

"That's okay. I'll do it again, just watch closely okay?"

She nodded and focused harder. This time he told her to put the gun back together. She started to take the gun apart, which she did successfully, but when he asked her to put it back together again, it was like she forgot what she just did. She became easily frustrated and slightly embarrassed with herself in front of him, and he could tell.

"Hey, it's okay. You just have to practice. You'll get it. Let's maybe just teach you how to shoot it. Come on, I'll take you somewhere to shoot."

"Um…are you sure we should be out in the open? I do still have angels and demons searching for me…and you."

"We'll be fine. I promise."

So, they both packed light and even though Nora suggested they should just take a cab, Sam told her they'd walk to a restaurant and hotwire a car. He drove them to a National Park, which was closed for the season, but it was a place for legal gun owners to hunt.

They walked deep into the woods and found a log where Sam took empty bottles from the inside of the car and sat them in a line, equal distance from each other. Nora stood back observing.

"Couldn't we start with bigger targets?"

Sam looked back at her, laughed, and then walked over to her.

"It's better to start small. Your aim will improve faster."

Sam walked over to her and handed her the gun, telling her how to turn the safety off.

"Okay, hold up the gun…both hands…that's right. Keep your arms straight."

Nora suddenly felt the weight, both physically and emotionally, in her hands…in her body. However, the only thought that came to mind was how ridiculous she felt. Therefore, naturally she started to laugh.

"What?"

"I just suddenly realized how really wrong this would look to an outsider."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm standing here…eight months pregnant…holding a 9mm. It's like…I don't know initiation into Teen Mom or something."

They both started to laugh, and for the first time in a long time, Nora started to feel at ease around him. The tension was still there, but just a simple laugh could easily tear at the seams inch by inch.

"Okay, now just aim, and slowly pull the trigger."

Nora listened to his instruction, but her hands did differently. She pulled the trigger fast, the force pushing her back slightly, and the bullet hit nothing.

"Okay, um…just relax. You're too tense. Here let me show you."

Sam walked behind her and held her hands up, his hands over hers, and instantly that tension rose to the surface and she froze up. He let go slowly and started to back up.

"Sorry, um, just keep your arms straight, like before."

Nora sighed and held her arms straight out in front of her, and aimed the gun at the bottle in the middle.

"Like this?"

"Yes, good. Now slowly pull the trigger, not fast, and breathe deep."

Nora sucked in a huge breath and let the air pass slowly through her lips and then she squeezed the trigger lightly and the sound of shattering glass alerted them both. She had hit the bottle she aimed for. She lowered her gun and smiled turning around to look at Sam with thanks.

"Wow, really good. Let's do it again."

After a few tries, hits and misses, she had finally managed to shatter every bottle sitting on the log. So, they both headed back to the motel.

**Two hours later**

They didn't speak. For two whole hours, they just minded their own business. Sam sat on his laptop researching, and Nora sat opposite him taking the gun apart and putting it back together. The loud clinking of the parts distracted Sam, so he shut his laptop and looked over at her. She didn't seem to notice, until he sighed. She looked up and froze at his gaze.

"What?"

"Nothing…uh…actually…can we talk?"

"It's been like two hours since we have, so yeah," she grinned.

He rubbed the back of his neck and leaned back in his chair.

"I want to fix this."

"Fix what," Nora said still handling the parts of the 9mm.

"This…issue…can you just put that down…" he said laying his hand on top of hers. She froze again, like before, and looked down at their hands, his skin on hers. It was an intimate gesture, and it scared her all the more. A memory of Lucifer holding her hands in his flashed in her mind. With him, the gesture was vile and controlling. His hands were rough and seemed to tighten around hers. Sam's felt gentle, soft.

"This…right here. You're still afraid of me. You freeze when we have any sort of contact. You barely say two words to me."

Nora slid her hand out from under his and he let her. She rested them on her stomach, rubbing them in circles.

"I'm not him, Nora. I know that he…looked like me…but…he's not me. He wants you because you're powerful, and he…"

He paused, not wanting to tell her the obvious, and wanting to say the right thing.

"I only want you…" he began, and Nora looked up at his odd choice of words. Quickly, he recovered and finished his thought saying, "to trust me…to be my…friend or whatever you want to call it."

"That's asking a lot," Nora sounded.

Sam sighed and nodded his head.

"I know, but I promise you that I will never let anything happen to you. I won't say yes to him. So, I know that it will take time, but I'm asking you to trust me…please?"

A tear started to roll down Nora's cheek, but she wiped it away quickly, and looked away from him.

"Can you at least say you'll try?"

Nora sniffed and looked back at him.

"Yeah, but you can't push me. Like you said, it will take some time. What I saw, what he plans to do with me…I…" she trailed off now not being able to hold back her emotions. Her throat felt dry, her tears began to spill. She would've liked to have been able to blame pregnancy hormones, but while it might have been at least thirty percent of the cause, the other seventy percent was the wall of tension that surrounded her, separated her from Sam.

Sam reached out to her, again testing his boundaries and took her hand in his. This time, she turned her hand over, palm up her fingers laced in his. She got up and walked over to him, hand still in hers, and stood in front of him. He furrowed his brows, looking up at her.

I want you to hug me, you idiot," she laughed through her tears. He grinned and stood up, easily towering over her, like he did pretty much everyone and hesitantly wrapped his arms around her. She hugged him tightly, well as much as she could with a baby in the way, and fear overcame her again, tears spilling when she thought she had none left. He rubbed her back soothingly and then suddenly he turned his head and kissed her cheek. She held herself back, still in his arms and looked up at him through blurry eyes.

It's an odd sensation when you look at someone you've known, whether it be for a day, a week, years, and suddenly it's like you figure out who they are. Who they really are. It's like the when stars align, and suddenly something makes sense. Questions are answered. When Nora looked at Sam, and he was looking back at her, she felt more connected to him than she had ever felt before. Before, he was sort of like what they say about twins. They always know what each other are thinking, but this…whatever it was between them…it was more than that. She knew, besides the fact that so many times he had felt like a freak, said he wasn't normal, that he would end up bad, that really… Sam Winchester was good. That's not to say that one hug, a touch of the hand, and a kiss on the cheek solved all of their problems, but she didn't feel scared with him anymore. For a minute she could swear he was starting to lean his head down, but the ringing of a cell phone broke the silence, and they broke apart. Sam reached into the front pocket of his jeans and answered his phone.

"Hey Dean, what's going on?"

He turned away from her and continued his conversation with Dean about the current case while Nora headed to the bathroom closing the door behind her and leaning against it. She looked at herself in the mirror and held her fingertips on the cheek where Sam had kissed her. She walked over to the sink and leaned over it, turning the faucet on, and splashing her face with cold water. And then there it was. A pain so sharp it nearly knocked her over. It started from her stomach and rippled through her body. She held her stomach with one hand while the other held onto the sink for support and gasped.

Another sharp pain, this time worse than the first, and then another…another…until she was on the floor leaning against the wall. That was when she felt a small amount of liquid pooling around her. She reached down dipping her finger into the puddle between her legs, and what should have been just a clear, watery liquid came up red on her fingers. Blood. Her breathing quickened and she felt a panic rise in her, like a tingle up her spine. Another sharp pain hit her again and he groaned in pain. Again, and this time she cried out. It was like someone was stabbing her repeatedly.

As quickly as he heard her cry out he opened the door. Sam looked down at the floor at an unconscious Nora and picked her body up off the floor. She was in and out of consciousness. She saw Sam placing her in the backseat of the car they stole. The streetlights passing by. A hospital building. Sam holding her and walking her inside. Being placed on a rolling bed. And then darkness.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

**Hello again! So here's the next chapter! It's a shorter one, more of a filler really, but there's some slight fluff, so enjoy! Thanks again for the reviews/favorites/follows, and please, please, keep them coming! And if I don't get another chapter out by tomorrow, which is likely, an early Happy Halloween to you all! Hope you have fun!**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories.**

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Nora's eyes opened, very slowly, a bright white light making it difficult to do so. Her vision blurry and her head pounding, she tried again, this time making her eyes open. After a few blinks she took in her surroundings. She was in a hospital room she couldn't remember coming to. She had a tube running into her nose to help her breathe, IV stuck in her arm, and the first thing she noticed was her stomach was no longer there, swollen like it had been the last time she was conscious. She lifted the heavy weight of her arms and pulled the blanket down to reveal her flat stomach.

_What the hell?_

She looked around the room again, and suddenly remembered that she was pregnant, and with Sam, and then suddenly she woke up in the hospital, no longer pregnant. Was it all a dream? Had she been in a coma? Quite a vivid dream if it was. She found herself sighing in relief until the door to her room opened and in walked Sam and Dean, coffees in their hands.

"Shit," she sighed in defeat.

"Well, not the reaction I was expecting," Dean grinned.

Sam sat his coffee down on the bedside table and sat in a chair she didn't notice was placed next to her bed.

"Hey Nora, we're all here. Bobby's just outside the room. How are you feeling?"

She hadn't noticed that he took her hand in his until she felt the slightest tingle spreading on the skin of her right hand. She looked down, and memories of being in the motel room with him, talking, crying, hugging him, the kiss he laid upon her cheek flooded her mind.

Her hand relaxed under his. Their fingers rubbed against each other's soothingly.

"I feel like I got hit by a truck…did I get hit by a truck?"

Sam and Dean smiled and laughed and then Sam explained to her that she had passed out in the bathroom.

"You went into labor, but what the doctors don't know that we do is that you had one powerful baby nesting inside you. Labor pains, or contractions were far more intense for you, so I guess you just fainted from the pain. I found you and took you here."

Blood. She remembered her fingers painted with blood.

"Is she…my baby...is she?"

"She's fine."

"My stomach it's… did I already give birth…"

"Yeah, Cas sort of helped in the two second diet. Flattened you right out. If a nurse comes in just stuff a pillow in your shirt for now," Dean winked.

A tear started to spill from her eye. She felt entirely saddened by the fact that she, of all people, missed the birth of her child. Of course, not feeling the pain was a plus, but she started to remember her mother, how she died, and how her father had taken "care" of her. If she wasn't worried about being a good mother before, she sure was now.

"How did I miss the whole birth?"

"You were numbed, and well pretty much already passed out. They couldn't get you to wake up, so they performed a C-section."

"And…and she's healthy? She's fine?"

Sam nodded and smiled, squeezing her hand gently.

"Can I see her?"

"They said whenever you wake up, they'll bring her in. So, I can go get the doctor now if you want," Dean asked already inching towards the door. Nora nodded and he left to fetch the doctor.

"She's beautiful. I can already see she's going to look like you," Sam smiled.

Nora wiped the tears from her eyes and started to sit up in the bed, Sam lending a helping hand in doing so, and as soon as she was sitting up, he reached for her hand again.

"So, Cas flattened my stomach," she laughed, "Why?"

"He said something about you needing to be in perfect condition as soon as possible," Sam chuckled.

"Well he would be one hell of a guy to have around in the pregnancy ward. We could call it the Castiel Diet."

Just then, Dean walked back into the room.

"She'll be in here in just a minute," he beamed.

"How are you guys even allowed in here? Isn't it supposed to be family members only?"

"Aw yes. Sam's your husband, I'm your cousin, Bobby's your dad, and Cas is your older brother," Dean laid out the family tree for her.

It didn't slip past her that Sam was playing the role of Nora's husband. She looked over at him and smiled, Dean looking between the two of them with amusement.

The moment was broken when a nurse walked in, rolling a small bed into the room with a tiny baby, Nora's daughter sleeping silently in the bed.

"Hello Nora," the nurse smiled sweetly. "It's nice to see you awake. You feeling okay?"

"Yeah, a little sore, but I'll live."

"Would you like to meet your daughter?"

Nora smiled and nodded, tears already threatening to spill from delight and awe. The nurse reached into the bed gently and as quietly as she could lifted the sleeping baby in her arms and held her out for Nora to take in her arms. Nora sat herself up straighter and held her arms out, and her daughter…her daughter was placed in her arms.

Sam was right. She was beautiful. She had just a small amount of dark brown hair on her head, her eyes were closed, and she was sleeping so sound for a newborn baby. Her skin was soft and white, and it almost seemed to glow under the fluorescent lights. With each breath she took her lips would pucker out just faintly, and little spit bubbles popped. She was bundled up in a pink fleece blanket, but one hand stuck out, tiny little fingers formed a loose fist. Nora, supporting her baby's head in the crook of her right elbow, took her left hand and stuck her thumb between her baby's palm and fingers holding it gently, soothingly. Everything in that room with her seemed to disappear, the only clear image in her eyes was her daughter, so quiet and peaceful.

Even though this child looked and felt so innocent, Nora started to cry in sorrow. Her daughter was being hunted by good and evil. Before, Nora had the comfort in knowing that they would have to go through her to get her daughter, but now they could easily take her child away from her. She couldn't bear having anything happen to this child. How does a mother even go on with their lives once a child is taken away from them?

"Have you thought of a name for her," the nurse interrupted her thoughts.

It never even occurred to Nora that she would have to name the child. Parents spend practically the whole nine months thinking of a name, and she hadn't thought about it once. Her baby was constantly threatened, and she had the morbid thought of it not mattering if her daughter had a name once she was taken.

"I haven't come up with one yet."

"Very well. When you think of one, tell me or any of the other nurses on this floor. We'll get the paperwork ready."

The nurse started to walk out of the room.

"Thank you nurse," Sam said, his gaze never leaving Nora.

"Do you guys want to hold her," Nora risked asking the brothers.

They both froze looking incredibly nervous at the thought of holding something so fragile. Nora almost laughed, but didn't want to wake her baby up.

"I don't know," Dean started.

"Ok, Dean you're first," Nora smiled and started to lift her daughter up towards him.

He hesitated, but walked over to the side of the bed, his eyes wide, chewing the inside of his cheek.

"Relax Dean, it's just a baby. Just hold her in your arms like that…very good…make sure you support her head…there you go…you're doing it," she smiled.

Her daughter looked so much smaller in Dean's arms, and he held her so cautiously. She watched as the nervous expression drained from his face and a smile took its place. He attentively took his index finger and lightly traced her small, soft cheek.

"You're good at this, Dean," Nora smiled.

He smirked, looking at Nora and then back to her baby. In that moment, all the three of them boiled down to were just three normal human beings celebrating bringing in a new life. When death and the constant reminder that the people you love could die at any given moment are constantly surrounding you, it was nice to have times like these, where something good happened for once. There was hope for life. For something good.

…

**The next day.**

"You guys are leaving already," Nora sighed.

"We're sorry, duty calls," Dean apologized referring to a job they were going to take.

"Well, what are the details," Nora asked realizing she was going to talk Dean out of it.

"A man died of old age," he said plainly.

Nora squint her eyes and studied the look on Dean's face to see if he was serious about what he just said.

"That's…normal."

"He was 24."

"Aw, there it is," Nora sighed. "Yeah go ahead I guess. I'll just be here eating shit food and talking to myself."

Dean walked over to her and rested his hand on her shoulder trying to comfort her.

"Well, we told Cas to keep an eye on you. He's right outside," he said pointing to a very stiff Cas standing, actually quite creepily outside the window of her hospital room staring in, his usual squint and head cocked to the right, arms by his side.

"Cause that's not creepy. I can't believe you're leaving me with him."

"What's wrong with him? He's an angel, Nora. If any of us should keep an eye out for you it better well be him."

Nora sighed and nodded, "Fine."

Sam walked over to her, peering at her daughter sleeping in the little bed beside her before walking over to Nora. He knelt down and mirrored Dean's actions, placing a hand on her shoulder gently.

"You'll be fine. Cas will take care of you."

Nora grinned and nodded laying her hand over his on her shoulder.

"Be safe, please don't die okay," she whined.

"We'll be back."

"And Dean…don't let Paris Hilton kick your ass again," She smiled.

"Shut up," Dean pointed at her before walking out.

And like that Sam and Dean walked out of the room, Sam glancing back at her once more before disappearing in the hallway, and then Cas took their place, walking…nervously…into the room?

"What's wrong with you," Nora asked.

"This place is strange," he said taking in his surroundings. "There's way too much life and death in one building. I don't know how you can handle even sleeping in here," he said, his voice low.

"Yeah, I don't like hospitals much either."

Nora watched him scope out nearly every inch of the room until he stopped beside the bed her daughter was sleeping in. He lifted his hands, gripped the side of the bed, and looked in. She nearly laughed when she watched his head tilt in the other direction. It was like watching a curious puppy.

"She looks like you," he finally said.

"Well, I would hope so. I mean her dad was hot and everything, but I'd rather not have to tell her that she looks just like her dead father."

He turned to her then and his brows furrowed at her statement. Hot? What does his body temperature have to do with physical appearance? He made sure to keep that thought locked in his memory for later. There must be an answer.

Nora watched him continue to watch her daughter and an idea popped into her mind that she wasn't sure he'd be exactly volunteering for.

"Do you…maybe want to hold her," she asked guardedly.

He turned to her then and the look on his face was one she had seen before when Dean took the two of them to the brothel awhile back. He looked panicked, his eyes wide, his lips in a tight line.

"It's okay if you don't want to," she said.

"It's not that…I just…I don't know how…to hold one," he said plainly.

Nora, no longer needing IV in her arm and free of the restrictions and rules to get up and moving around, sat up and swung her legs over the bed standing up slowly. She made her way over to her daughter and Cas who moved aside. She reached in and carefully picked up the sleeping baby in her arms and turned to Cas who held his arms out completely straight and firm.

Laughing quietly Nora instructed him, "You need to relax your arms just a little."

He started to bend his arms slowly looking up at her in approval that he was doing it right. She nodded and started to pass her daughter over to him.

"Ok, support her head…good."

Nora beamed at the sight in front of her. It felt like looking at a live action Christmas card. Her daughter in the arms of an angel. He looked so scared staring at Nora now, but then once he saw her smile he lowered his chin and peered quizzically at the baby. Her daughter had slept very soundly, the quietest newborn baby the hospital staff had ever delivered. However, as soon as Cas looked down at her, her eyes started to open, and she looked straight into his eyes. Nora couldn't believe it. Usually a baby's eyes will only open halfway, but hers were wide open and she didn't look anywhere but straight into Cas' eyes.

"I think she likes you," Nora smiled.

Cas looked up at Nora and mirrored the smile molding her features, but the memory of what her mother, Istahar, showed him plagued his thoughts.

_You loved my daughter so much that you thought you should have a family. When you told her you wanted a baby…she just…flipped. It brought back painful memories you see._

Was this one of those painful memories? Was this when he started to let his feelings, his closeness to her cloud his judgment?

"I think you should hold her now," he said starting to hand her the baby.

Nora's smile faded, but she took the baby from him and held her, her daughter closed her eyes again. She walked back over to her bed and sat down. Cas sighed and walked over to the chair sitting beside her bed and sat down.

"Have you given her a name?"

Nora gently stroked her daughter's arm taking in all of her features, one at a time.

"I've been throwing around a few ideas in my head."

"What have you come up with?"

She looked up at him.

"At first, I thought I'd give her a name from the Bible. It seemed…fitting, but then I got thinking…"

Cas was silent, focusing and listening very hard to what she was saying.

"My daughter's life is threatened, if not before, so much more now, and in time she will realize that…but…for now I want her to be like me. I want her to be as normal as possible. Giving her a name from the Bible because of what she is…it feels wrong. So, I thought just giving her a normal, mundane, probably really overused name would be a better idea. She's going to think she's some sort of freak eventually, so why give her a name to represent that?"

Cas nodded his head and continued to listen to what she was saying.

"So, the name you came up with?"

"Emily," she stated looking down at her daughter smiling, as if the name suddenly clicked everything into place, "Her name is Emily Nicole Reid."

**One hour later**

"Well, what a shock, little Emily is sleeping. I swear, I'm starting to envy that little booger," Nora smiled looking at Cas.

"Envy is a sin," he said warningly.

"Geez, chillax bro. I had sex with a fallen angel, and you didn't judge me then."

"Actually, I did. I just didn't voice my opinion of it to you."

Nora grinned and shook her head sitting on her bed. She patted the spot next to her and he walked over sitting down, his back straight, making Nora chuckle.

"You're a tense little dude aren't you?"

He turned his face towards her and looked at her like she was naïve.

"I'm not small. Here on earth, yes, but my true form is the size of your Chrysler building."

Nora's mouth dropped.

"Wow. Really?"

Cas only nodded and turned to stare straight ahead of him.

"Can I ask you something," he asked seriously.

"Sure."

His eyes scanned the room and he turned to face her watching her take a drink from the water bottle on her nightstand.

"I've observed the obvious sexual tension between you and Sam," he began and Nora nearly choked on her water. "There's something I don't understand."

Nora feared for what he was about to ask, deciding not to take another sip of water in trepidation of showering Cas.

"First of all, I don't know what you're talking about. Sam and I are just friends…but for the love of God, what don't you understand?"

"If you truly love him, why don't you act upon these feelings? Are you feeling doubt?"

Nora was stunned. She figured Cas was excessively busy figuring out the inner workings of angels and heaven to focus in on Nora's love life. Did it really seem that important to him to know?

"Like I said, Cas, Sam and I are just friends. If anything were to happen between us, we'd have to end it."

"Because of your lives and the danger that seems to follow you?"

Nora smiled, the expression not reaching her eyes and nodded. She thought about Sam then. Yes, they were friends, but she wouldn't lie to herself, she had been thinking about what it would be like to be more than that for a while, even when she feared him. That feeling only multiplied when she, just a few days ago, started seeing him as Sam again, and not Lucifer. Maybe that's why she had always felt connected to him.

"But, I am trying to figure out what is happening with our relationship, I'll admit. Cas, do you believe in soul mates?"

"That's more of cupid's job to believe in them and I'm designed to believe in them yes, but I'm starting to have my doubts."

"What do you mean?"

He sighed and peered into her eyes for what seemed like forever. It was enough to make Nora suddenly uncomfortable, so she nervously tucked a stray hair behind her ear, looking down.

"There was an angel once, many years ago. She fell in love with a human, which as I'm sure you know is forbidden of us. As punishment, she was cast out of Heaven, but they thought it appropriate to make her suffer in Hell instead of killing her, and the man was killed instead sometime later. I spoke to that angel before she was cast out and she told me she loved him and that he was her soul mate."

Nora started to frown already sensing what made Cas have his doubts.

"If soul mates are real, what would be the point? It seems a waste to love somebody only to suffer and see them die eventually."

Nora was saddened by the fact that this really seemed to trouble Cas. She wondered why and what got him thinking of something like that. Had he seen into the future? Did he see what would eventually become of Sam and her?

"Well…I guess that's sort of the point in loving someone. You love them no matter the consequence."

"But how do you stop these feelings if you know they are wrong?"

"That's the million dollar question I suppose. I don't think we humans have quite figured that out yet."

Cas frowned, not satisfied in her answer but nodded, accepting her thoughts on the matter and absorbing her words. They both turned their heads and looked straightforward sitting side-by-side. He racked his brain for an explanation of why he thought of her as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and what that meant. Nora repeated the words she had said aloud to Cas deciphering what she thought she meant by them. Was Sam worth the trouble when she saw what would happen to him later in 2014? He said it himself; all roads lead to that moment. How are you supposed know which road was right and which was wrong?


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Hello again everyone! Thanks again for the reviews/favorites/ follows. However, it would motivate me a lot more if I got a few more reviews. I'd really appreciate it! Anyways, this chapter is influenced by a short story I really enjoyed reading in one of my English Lit classes. If you haven't read it, here's a link to it online. It's by Charlotte Perkins Gilman called "The Yellow Wallpaper", and it's just really good!

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters from Supernatural or the characters within the show, as well as plotlines, just my OC, Nora, and a few other characters in later chapters, and their back-stories.**

"_**And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern-it strangles so."- Charlotte Perkins Gilman**_

Nora and Dean were so focused on the TV show they didn't even budge when Sam walked through the door. Emily was, as always, sound asleep in Nora's arms, and both Nora and Dean sat at the end of the bed facing the TV, eyes glued.

"What are you watching," Sam mocked.

Nora broke out of her trance and looked over to Sam, Dean's focus still on the show as he answered Dean.

"Hospital show. Dr. Sexy, MD. I think it's based on a book."

Sam looked at Nora, eyebrows raised questioning her to which she just shrugged her shoulders, and he laughed.

"When did you hit menopause?"

"It's called channel surfing," Dean defended himself. However, trying to cover up the fact that he was secretly into the show, he "manned" up and reached to turn off the TV. Sam grabbed his jacket off the other bed and looked over to Dean.

"You ready," Dean asked.

"Are you," Sam retorted, still in a mocking tone. Dean chuckled sarcastically and walked out of the room.

Nora started towards the baby crib the motel manager provided for them and laid Emily gently inside. She hovered over the crib smiling down at her daughter. She had been doing that a lot since they had released her from the hospital.

Sam looked over to her and smiled, "She's the quietest baby I've ever encountered." He walked over to stand next to Nora and saw how Nora reacted when he stepped next to her. She hovered just slightly more over the crib, protective, but he could literally see the thoughts cranking in her mind. She realized what she did, and mentally scolded herself for being so over-protective of Emily when Sam, of all people, was around. It would take just a little while to fully trust him, but that didn't mean shutting him out completely. Moreover, she was well aware of the feelings that she started to harbor for Sam. How can you like someone, really like them, but not fully trust them?

"We'll be back as soon as we can. You two going to be alright?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Remember what to do if something happens, even if something spooks you?"

Nora rolled her eyes and set her hands on her hips.

"Pray to Cas."

"Good," he smiled, "We'll be back."

"Okay, dad," she joked.

Sure enough, nothing happened to Nora and her daughter while the brothers were gone. In fact, she was a little disappointed to be honest. Of course, she didn't want anything bad to happen to them both, especially Emily, but it scared her more having nothing happen to her. It was like ever since she gave birth to Emily, angels and demons suddenly lost all interest in them both. Granted she did have the Enochian symbols carved into her ribs, but Emily didn't. She had nothing to ward them all off. So, why was everything so quiet? Nora had a thought that started to warm her whole body. Maybe someone was watching out for her. Or maybe it was just Cas. Either way she was grateful.

When Sam and Dean got back from their investigation, they filled her in on the crazy idea that the Incredible Hulk, from the TV show, had killed a man. When you hear enough crazy in your life, in this case, a few months for Nora, eventually you just take everything with a silver spoon. Crazy was just one of the perks of this life, and having a TV show character kill you was probably true.

Then they told her that they found candy wrappers at the crime scene, which only meant that they were dealing with the Trickster that they had met before they knew Nora. Guy sounded like an asshole to her, and she was glad that the brothers seemed to already know what to do about him. That was until Sam made the suggestion that instead they talk to him, not kill him. Apparently, he thought he could be useful in the fight against Lucifer.

That was when they heard the police scanner and it said something right up Sam and Dean's alley at an old paper mill. So, once again, they left her with Emily while they went to investigate. She started to get worried when time had passed and they still weren't home. She called both of their cells three times each, but nothing. She even prayed to Cas, but nothing. Why wasn't he answering? So much for a guardian angel. She eventually got tired of waiting up for them, in more ways than one. Her eyelids got heavier and heavier, until finally sleep overcame her.

* * *

The smell of drywall and a sharp gust of cool air woke Nora from her deep slumber. She inhaled deeply and brought the backs of her hands to cover her eyes, wiping the sleep from them. When she opened them a sight very unlike the place she had fallen asleep in jolted her body forward, fully awake. The only furniture in the room was the bed she was sitting on. The rest of the room was completely bare, plaster from the walls lined the floor, dust collected in small piles, some still falling like snowflakes in the sun that filtered through the single barred window. The wallpaper was what disturbed Nora the most. Even with the amount of disarray covering the floor that would indicate the wall being the cause, it was perfectly fine, in fact, in great condition as if newly painted. It was an eggshell white, and not a single crack in the paint.

"Hello," Nora croaked, still waking her body up.

There was no answer, not even a single sound in the room, which made it just as deafening. In fact, it reminded her of a room in a psyche ward. Then the real panic struck a nerve in her body that sent her overboard. Emily was nowhere in sight. Hastily, Nora threw herself out of bed and opened the door a couple of feet away from her seeing a hallway that stretched for what looked like miles, but when she stepped into the hallway, it changed, and she was back in the room she woke up in. She took fast, heavy breaths trying to remember what happened before she went to sleep, but she remembered she was in the motel alone.

_Maybe this is just a dream._

If that was so, Nora wasn't going to waste anymore time. She took her index finger and thumb and pinched the skin on her arm hard and winced, her eyes shut. When she opened her eyelids, she was still there. She realized she didn't have her phone with her so, calling Sam and Dean wasn't an option.

_Cas! That's it!_

She stood in the middle of the room and gazed upwards.

"Cas, please, I need your help. Something is wr…"

"Nora, you're alright. Good. Listen, this is a trick, I need to get you…"

Cas disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared, and another voice replaced his, but it was a voice that she recognized completely as her own. She turned towards the direction the voice was coming from and was startled by what was before her. It was her, definitely, but she was different. She wore a floor length white gown, lace trimming at the bottom and around the breasts. Her feet were bare and bleeding, and the look on her face told her that this alternate version of her was scared and had seen things that haunted her always. Behind her the wall outlined her shape, burnt around the edges as if she had burned her way through the wall, ruining the perfect condition it was in before.

"Hello, Nora," the alternate her said softly.

"I don't understand. What's going on," Nora panicked.

The alternate her moved her feet just a few inches forward and stood before Nora, a small smirk forming on her lips.

"You don't need to be afraid of what is happening."

"Why?"

"Because you should be more afraid of yourself."

Nora stood back absorbing her…own words…and chuckled, "Is that supposed to be a you'd only be hurting yourself kind of thing?"

"You're with Lucifer in my year. I know you caught a glimpse of me when Zachariah sent you to 2014. I watched you, you know….interact with him. You're much stronger now than you'll become later on."

"But why are you here?"

"To warn you."

Nora stared at herself from the future. This wasn't her at all. This future her, was timid, quiet, alone, and frightened. She remembered Lucifer in Sam's body telling her how she becomes more submissive to him.

"Warn me of what?"

"I know your feelings for Sam are starting to grow. You feel frightened around him still, but something inside of you is still wanting him. You must end those feelings now."

Nora, abruptly overcome with emotion, stumbled back and sat on the bed behind her. She ran a hand through her tangled hair and looked back up at this sad, sad, girl.

"Why?"

She stepped up directly in front of Nora on the bed and looked down at her.

"It will only make things worse. Sam isn't just chosen to be Lucifer's true vessel for strength. He wants you to fall for him, and I'll have you know that you do fall for him, and then you end up like me. He chose Sam also because he knew you wouldn't fall for the vessel Lucifer is in now. Once he takes Sam, he'll have you too. He told me, it makes it easier for you to want him when he's in Sam's body."

Nora noticed her hands shaking and put them into fists trying to make them stop.

"So, he's playing matchmaker? That's his endgame for me." Nora tried to sound so sure of herself, trying to make this other her believe it as much as she was trying to make herself believe.

"Please, Nora. You can't end up like this," the alternate her pointed at herself looking down morosely. "If you want your child to live, you will stay away from him."

"I can't just stay away from him. He's my friend, and so is Dean. I help them!"

"Then stay away from him in a romantic sense!"

Nora's strong attempt to remain the strong one crumbled. Tears started to spill she didn't even know she could still cry. She had been doing a lot of that lately.

"How," her voice cracked.

The other her started to back away, her gaze penetrating, but she said nothing.

"Wait, please. You have to tell me how!"

Then alternate her walked backwards into the gapping hold in the wall she came out of and the wall closed up around her before Nora could reach her, returning to its perfect state. Nora banged her palms on the wall and shouted, "Wait! Please!"

"You should really save your energy," came another voice.

Nora spun around quickly and was face-to-face with a man just a few inches taller than herself, smiling a cheeky grin, his hands behind his back.

Nora remembered the case Sam and Dean were working on before she fell asleep and woke up in this other reality, this laugh box lacking anything funny.

"You're the Trickster?"

"Bravo, Nora! I gotta say, you got that a lot quicker than those asshat Winchester's you love so much. I'm a big fan of you," he said a little too cheerily for comfort.

"I can't say the same."

The Trickster laughed and put his hands out to his side as if surrendering.

"Why did you bring me here? Why are you…tricking me?"

"Oh this isn't a trick. I don't want to play tricks with you, Nora."

"Where's Emily then?"

"She's fine. I dropped her off at Bobby's."

A little less stress weighed Nora now. She sighed and looked back at him, waiting for an explanation as to what was going on.

"You must want to know, why I have brought you here," the Trickster said, mimicking a line she was sure she had heard in almost every superhero movie ever. "Well, it's to get you out of the dark, and into the light."

"What does that mean?"

"It's time I tell you more about your father."

"My father?"

"Surely, you must know?"

Nora continued to stare at him questioningly and he rolled his eyes, walked over to her, and passed her to sit on the bed. He patted the spot next to him, beckoning for her to sit, and hesitantly she obliged.

"You don't know? Nora, I'm a little disappointed in your sudden stupidity."

"Just tell me, asshole!"

Again, his lifted his arms in surrender.

"Your father was a hunter, just like John Winchester."

There was always an itching feeling that Nora had already knew that, but the naïve little girl in her clinged to the feeling that so desperately hoped she was wrong, and now hearing it out loud was even harder to bare.

"That's why he left you alone so much. I just can't believe you never figured it out."

"Okay, so what is so important about that? He's dead."

The Trickster rested his hand on Nora's knee to which she immediately slapped it away.

"He didn't exactly die the way you thought. That night when you came to identify the body…well you could say that wasn't entirely real."

"What do you mean?"

He tilted his head sideways, smiling at her as if waiting for her to put the puzzle together. He could practically see the pieces coming together in her mind.

"What I saw? It was…like this," Nora said her eyes looking around the room surrounding them.

"Bingo! Fifty points for Gryffindor!"

"So, how did he die?"

"A demon, and well a hellhound. He was ripped to shreds. So much that there was barely a body left."

Nora felt like her heart dropped into her stomach, and the contents of her stomach were about to rise. More tears started to spill, and she had to grip the side of the bed to keep herself steady.

"The call I received, was you wasn't it?"

He only nodded.

"That body I saw, my father, you created that whole illusion."

"Yes, Nora, and I mean it. I am truly sorry for your loss."

Yeah right.

"Why did a demon kill him?"

"Because you were created most likely…and well he made a deal. His time was up."

"What kind of deal?"

"Ten more years to watch you grow up I think. Your father was on a hunt the night he made that deal, and let's just say it didn't end too well. He was on Death's door, so he went to a crossroads and he made that deal…for you."

Suddenly, all the hatred she had felt for her father set a guilt riding every fiber in her being. All this time he was just trying to keep her safe, not abandoning her in motel rooms.

"So why did you help? Why keep me in the dark about my father's death?"

"I'm not exactly a Trickster."

"Then what are you?"

He stood up and went to stand directly in front of her, taking a deep breath as if preparing for a speech he had been practicing and he grabbed her hands, holding them gently in his.

"My name is Gabriel, and I am your guardian angel," he said and then bowed as if Nora was supposed to be impressed.

"Gabriel? As in the archangel, Gabriel?"

He nodded again and Nora stood up, releasing her hands from his grip.

"I know it's a lot to take in."

"I gotta say, for a guardian angel, you sure have done a shit job."

Gabriel frowned and took a step back from her.

"Are you kidding me? I kept you from this life you're living now. You could've lived a normal life!"

"And then be fifty times more frightened when some black-eyed freak breaks into my apartment and kills me? Where were you when I met Samyaza? Where were you when I went to the storage facility to stop me from seeing what that noise was?"

"Your father asked me to keep you in the dark! I wasn't assigned you from my father; I was assigned to protect you from your father! I was doing my job!"

The amount of information she was receiving lately was enough to bury her six-feet deep. Hell the amount of information that could have killed her knowing might as well have buried her that deep.

"Please. Just take me back. I want my daughter, and I want to know that Sam and Dean are okay."

Sighing, Gabriel lifted his fingers and snapped and suddenly they both were back to what must have been reality, in a warehouse, where Sam and Dean were standing before Gabriel who was surrounded by a ring of fire.

Gabriel started to clap and laughed.

"Well played, boys. Well played. Where'd you get the holy oil?"

"Well, you might say we pulled it out of Sam's ass," Dean said, earning a confused look from Nora who he finally realized was standing next to him.

He turned to her panicked, "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

"I'm fine, and before you ask, Emily is with Bobby."

He sighed, relieved and turned back to Gabriel who interrupted their moment.

"Where'd I screw up?"

"You didn't. Nobody gets the jump on Cas like you did," Sam said.

"Mostly it was the way you talked about Armageddon," Dean told him, smirking.

"Meaning?"

Nora didn't want to have to go over what she already knew so she butted in.

"Guys, he's an archangel. His name is Gabriel."

"Gabriel? The archangel," Sam asked.

"Guilty," Gabriel smirked.

"Okay, Gabriel. How does an archangel become a trickster," Dean questioned.

"My own private witness protection. I skipped out of heaven, had a face transplant, carved out my own little corner of the world. Till you three screwed it all up. They knew I was her guardian angel."

"He's your what," Sam shouted looking over at Nora who looked at him and in that look he knew she was confirming it as true.

"What did Daddy say when you ran off and joined the pagans?"

"Daddy doesn't say anything about anything."

"Then what happened? Why'd you ditch?"

"Do you blame him? I mean, his brothers are heavyweight douchenozzles," Dean insulted.

Rapidly, Gabriel became very serious and defensive.

"Shut your cakehole. You don't know anything about my family. I love my father, my brothers. Love them. But watching them turn on each other? Tear at each other's throats? I couldn't bear it! Okay? So I left. And now it's happening all over again."

"Then help us stop it," Sam pleaded.

"It can't be stopped."

"You wanna see the end of the world," Dean asked.

"I want it to be over," Gabriel shouted, " I have to sit back and watch my own brothers kill each other thanks to you three! Heaven, hell, I don't care who wins, I just want it to be over."

"It doesn't have to be like that. There has to be some way to, to pull the plug," Nora said. Gabriel looked over at her and his demeanor softened when he heard her speak, but he chuckled lightly.

"You do not know my family, Nora. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. And Nora, you didn't have to be a part of this."

"What are you talking about," Sam asked.

"You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other."

Nora started to put together what Gabriel was trying to say a lot quicker than the brothers were, but she still couldn't understand what she had to do with it all. There had to be plenty of other women in the world, other nephilim, that could be in the position she was in now. Of course, because he was her guardian angel. He was supposed to protect her from this world, and he failed. Her father told him to keep her in the dark. But why? Did he know something? She wouldn't wish her fate on anyone. This was her role, and she had to be brave, brave for herself, but mostly brave for her daughter.

"What the hell are you saying," Dean asked.

"Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always."

"And me," Nora asked him knowing her tone of voice, that of questioning and a demand to know the answer wouldn't allow him to lie to her, to keep her in the dark.

"You sure you wanna know, sweetheart? Sometimes it's best not to know."

Nora walked up to him, closing in on him just outside the circle of fire and peered into his eyes that had a glint of amusement, but fear as well, as he was the trapped one in the situation. She wasn't afraid anymore.

"Yeah. You're daddy knew what would happen to you. The demon that had his little hell hound tear him apart showed him. The last image your dad saw was you dying. It's sort of poetic isn't it? You were chosen, Nora. Hell, you are practically branded with Lucifer's fire poker."

There was a long pause before Sam walked up and started to reach for Nora to make her step back. As soon as his hand made contact with her arm, she shoved it away, remembering what her future self said about her feelings for him. They would get her killed, Emily killed. When he wouldn't give up trying to make her step away from the fire, she finally turned around and shoved as hard as she could against his chest shouting, "No!" He backed off then and watched her fix herself up, straightening her shirt and making a run for it towards the door, where she hid herself in the Impala.

There was another long pause before Dean finally shattered the silence.

"No. That's not gonna happen."

"I'm sorry. But it is," Gabriel sighed, "Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be."

"What the hell kind of guardian angel are you? You were supposed to protect her, and you just let her slide right into the "role" you wanted her to play," Dean yelled.

"I didn't want her to be a part of anything," Gabriel shouted back, "Her father made a deal, I couldn't save him. He told me to make sure she knew nothing about this world, and I obeyed. Do you really think she would've listened to some wack job telling her the man she's about to sleep with is a fallen angel that's got ties with Lucifer?"

"Maybe not, but that doesn't change the fact that you were a coward and didn't even lift a finger to help her."

Anyone in that warehouse could see the guilt starting to write itself all over his expression at his biggest failure. He stood there still, unable to look up at them, but as time passed, the sun rose, and he tried to keep up his joking façade.

"So. Boys. Now what? We stare at each other for the rest of eternity?"

"Well, first of all, you're gonna bring Cas back from wherever you stashed him," Dean demanded.

"Oh am I," Gabriel mocked.

"Yeah. Or we're going to dunk you in some holy oil and deep-fry ourselves an archangel," Dean threatened.

Gabriel sighed and lifted his fingers, snapped, and Cas appeared in the warehouse behind the brothers.

"Cas, you okay," Dean asked.

"I'm fine. Hello, Gabriel."

"Hey, bro. How's the search for Daddy going? Let me guess. Awful," Gabriel taunted, but Cas said nothing.

"Okay, we're out of here. Come on, Sam," Dean said starting to turn away from Gabriel.

"Uh. Okay. Guys," Gabriel's voice grew louder, fear laced in his words, but Sam and Dean started to walk towards the door.

"So, so what? Huh?"

Finally, Cas stopped glaring at Gabriel and followed the brothers.

"You're just gonna, you're gonna leave me here forever?"

Dean stopped at the door and turned back facing Gabriel.

"No. We're not, 'cause we don't screw with people the way you do. And for the record? This isn't about some prize fight between your brothers or some destiny of Nora's that can't be stopped. This is about you being too afraid to stand up to your family," Dean shouted becoming angrier with each word. He lifted his hand and pulled the fire alarm down sending the sprinklers off.

"Don't say I never did anything for you," he said and the three men walked out the door and over to the car where Nora sat in the backseat, her head in her hands, shoulders trembling. Dean starts to open the door to try to talk to her but Sam grabs his arm and shakes his head to leave her alone. So they all three stood outside the car.

"All that stuff he was spouting in there, you think it was the truth," Dean asked.

"I think he believes it," Sam answered.

"So what do we do?"

"I don't know."

Dean sighed looking down at Nora again, seeing her sadness practically swallow her whole. It always ended this way. She would gain some sort of newfound confidence in herself only to find out something that completely crushed her. He thought letting her in on their world, her having knowledge of the things they hunted would benefit her, but it seemed the more she knew, the harder things would get for her. He was starting to think what her dad did for her was the best thing for her, but her foot was already deep in this sad excuse of a life, and there was no letting her go.

"Well I'll tell you one thing. Right about now I wish I was back in a TV show."

"Yeah, me too," Sam agreed looking at Nora as Dean had, both of them sharing the same opinion on Nora's fate. They both looked at one another, and silently got into the car and drove away.


End file.
